We analyze the global financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis showing that the European network exhibits a strong community structure with two main blocks acting as shock spreader and receiver, respectively. We provide evidence of the prominent role played by insurances in the...

The paper analyses the contagion channels of the European financial system through the stochastic block model (SBM). The model groups homogeneous connectivity patterns among the financial institutions and describes the shock transmission mechanisms of the financial networks in a compact way. We...