We propose several connectedness measures built from pieces of variance decompositions, and we argue that they provide natural and insightful measures of connectedness among financial asset returns and volatilities. We also show that variance decompositions define weighted, directed networks, so...

We characterize equity return volatility connectedness in the network of major American and European financial institutions, 2004-2014. Our methods enable precise characterization of the timing and evolution of key aspects of the financial crisis. First, we find that during 2007-2008 the...