Using information in US and European bank and sovereign CDS spreads we study the systematic component of banks' credit risk that stems from banks' common exposure to sovereign default risk. Based on a default intensity model, we find that sovereign default risk is a significant factor of bank...

In this paper we analyse firm level systemic risk for US and European banks from 2004 to 2012. We observe that common systemic risk indicators are primarily driven by firm size which implies an overriding concern for “too-big-to-fail” institutions. However, smaller banks may still pose...