We propose a measure for systemic risk: CoVaR, the value at risk (VaR) of the financial system conditional on institutions being under distress. We define an institution's contribution to systemic risk as the difference between CoVaR conditional on the institution being under distress and the...

This paper studies a macroeconomic model in which financial experts borrow from less productive agents in order to invest in financial assets. We pursue three set of results: (i) Going beyond a steady state analysis, we show that adverse shocks cause amplifying price declines not only through...