Multivariate Markov-Switching models and tail risk interdependence

Abstract: Markov switching models are often used to analyze financial returns because of their ability to capture frequently observed stylized facts. In this paper we consider a multivariate Student-t version of the model as a viable alternative to the usual multivariate Gaussian distribution, providing a natural robust extension that accounts for heavy-tails and time varying non-linear correlations. Moreover, these modelling assumptions allow us to capture extreme tail co-movements which are of fundamental importance to assess the underlying dependence structure of asset returns during extreme events such as financial crisis. For the considered model we provide new risk interdependence measures which generalize the existing ones, like the Conditional Value-at-Risk (CoVaR). The proposed measures aim to capture interconnections among multiple connecting market participants which is particularly relevant during period of crisis when several institutions may contemporaneously experience distress instances. Those measures are analytically evaluated on the predictive distribution of the modes in order to provide a forward-looking risk quantification. Application on a set of U.S. banks is considered to show that the right specification of the model conditional distribution along with a multiple risk interdependence measure may help to better understand how the overall risk is shared among institutions.