The recent financial crisis poses the challenge to understand how systemic risk arises endogenously and what architecture can make the financial system more resilient to global crises. This paper shows that a financial network can be most resilient for intermediate levels of risk...

We model a credit network characterized by credit relationships connecting (i) downstream (D) and upstream (U) firms and (ii) firms and banks. The net worth of D firms is the driver of fluctuations. The production of D firms and of their suppliers (U firms) in fact, is constrained by the...