Risk Of Contagion Research Articles

Risk Contagion Effects of Interconnected Manufacturing Enterprises

In recent years, manufacturing enterprises have faced overall financial stress due to market conditions and new forms of positive development. Excessive inter-company loans have led to the rupture of the capital chain among enterprises, resulting in developmental challenges. Studying the flow of funds between enterprises, it is observed that financial risks bear similarities to the spread of infectious diseases like SARS. This paper employs the MATLAB data analysis environment, Python data analysis tools, and the SEIRS dynamic time-varying epidemiological model to investigate systemic risk transmission among enterprises. The analysis reveals that high-risk transmission rates, low-risk immunity rates, and low-risk isolation rates contribute to the rapid and uncontrollable spread of systemic risks among enterprises. Consequently, recommendations are made to strengthen market supervision, government intervention, and national regulation to ensure the safety of manufacturing enterprises.

A non-linear Lasso and explainable LSTM approach for estimating tail risk interconnectedness

ABSTRACT Tail risk inter-connectivity is a significant aspect and a risk indicator that should be focused on. Many of the previous works have shown potential non-linearity in tail risk contagion. With the recent advancements in deep learning, Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) networks have played an important role in sequential data prediction. We experiment with LASSO-based neural networks and interpretative LSTM model along with other machine learning approaches for investigating tail risk interconnectedness among the public banks of Japan. We also investigate the risk reception from large overseas banks in United States finding that medium-sized banks are more likely to receive international risks. Our studies show that LSTM-based model is an excellent fit for the scenario and total connectedness goes up during an economic crisis. The banks having larger market capitalization are more prone to emission and reception of tail risks. This is accompanied by exhibiting the impact of some major economic distresses on Japanese banking system. These results provide important information to regulators and policy makers.

Receiver or transmitter? Unlocking the role of green technology innovation in sustainable development, energy, and carbon markets

In the context of sustainable development, the energy crisis and the volatile carbon trading markets have made the integration of green technology increasingly essential. This study explores the spillover effects between green technology innovation (GTI), oil price, clean energy (CE), carbon emissions trading prices (CETP), and sustainable development (SD) using quantile connectedness. The static analysis reveals that the connectedness relationship in extreme quantiles is remarkably more related than the middle quantile. The dynamic results indicate that major events significantly strengthen the overall risk correlation, but spillover effects are asymmetric under different quantiles. Further analysis under extreme market conditions demonstrates that SD and CE have produced a continuous and steady risk spillover to GTI, while CETP increased the risk transmission to GTI following the COVID-19 pandemic. This research underscores the significance of coordinating the development of GTI, energy, carbon markets, and SD by investigating risk contagion mechanisms in various market scenarios. In terms of policy implications, the findings indicate that stable energy system and reasonable carbon prices can stimulate the advancement of GTI.

Credit risk contagion of supply chain finance: An empirical analysis of supply chain listed companies.

With the gradual rise of the supply chain financial model and the expansion of scale, credit risk and contagion effects are gradually strengthened as business and financial links between upstream and downstream enterprises in the supply chain. The traditional credit risk contagion assessment model based on the financial status of an enterprise and the pledging of fixed assets has been unable to meet the basic needs of modern supply chain companies and financial institutions for risk control. Therefore, this paper introduces the Cox-Copula model to comprehensively assess a company's financial situation and the business health of upstream and downstream companies in the supply chain from the perspective of actual transactions between companies and fixed asset pledges. The study found that credit risk has a contagion effect in supply chain enterprises, and this contagion effect of credit risk has certain dynamic characteristics. At the same time, it was found that the impacts of macroeconomic factors and microfinance factors on credit risk contagion of supply chain finance have differences in the two dimensions of degree and direction of action.

Managerial macroeconomic perception and systemic risk in China

This paper constructs a managerial macroeconomic perception index based on the textual financial disclosures and examines its impact on systemic risk in China. We reveal a significant positive relationship between managerial macroeconomic perception, particularly the forward-looking managerial macroeconomic perception, and bank systemic risk. Our study shows that managers with optimistic perception about macroeconomic conditions tend to engage in excessive risk-taking activities and increase the risk contagion among banks. Heterogeneous analyses suggest that the positive relationship between manager macroeconomic perception and systemic risk is more pronounced among banks that are non-state-owned, exclusively listed in A-shares, highly leveraged, or not considered systemically important. We also show that macroeconomic policy can mitigate the negative impact of managerial macroeconomic perception on systemic risk. These findings highlight the substantial role that managerial macroeconomic perception plays in shaping systemic risk within the banking sector.

Contagion mechanism of liquidity risk in the interbank network

Since the global financial crisis of 2007–2009, preventing financial crises has become one of the most important objectives of regulators and banks. Although previous studies have identified the phenomenon of risk contagion in the banking system, the underlying mechanisms of risk contagion are still unclear. This study delves into the multi-stage contagion mechanism of liquidity risk based on interbank lending linkages and clearing rules and introduces a new index to quantify bank liquidity risk. We find that the contagion of liquidity risk is primarily determined by the network structure of risk exposures between banks in default and is not significantly influenced by the lending relationships of banks that remain solvent. The empirical results suggest that banks with high risk should be prioritized for cash injections to improve system liquidity. These findings offer new insights into financial risk contagion and practical recommendations for regulatory authorities formulating intervention strategies and for banks conducting risk management.

Safe haven between European ESG and energy sector under Russian-Ukraine war: Role of sustainable investments for portfolio diversification

The shortage of oil and gas supply to Europe during the Russia-Ukraine conflict has triggered a price hike in the European energy sector. To mitigate the impact of higher energy prices on consumers, the EU introduced a price ceiling mechanism to curb gas prices from exceeding market norms. This interplay between supply shortages and price controls further heightened volatility in energy market prices. Consequently, our study aims to explore the efficacy of ESG indices as a safe haven against the highly volatile European oil and gas sectors to reduce portfolio losses during conflict. Using advanced analytical techniques such as cross-quantilogram to predict directional predictability, we find that bullish ESG markets are a safe haven against the bearish oil and gas markets in short, medium, and long-term investment horizons. Further, to identify the net receiver/transmitter of spillover between ESG indices and oil and gas sectors, our quantile time-frequency connectedness analysis shows ESG is a net receiver of spillover before the conflict and during wartime. Additionally, we explored the indicator of uncertainty that influences quantile spillover between ESG indices and European oil and gas sectors. We find that uncertainty's role in quantile spillover is significant and asymmetric, and it becomes more volatile during wartime. This feature tends to be amplified during short and long-term spillovers. Finally, the portfolio rebalance strategy suggests that a safe haven portfolio based on a one-month investment horizon yields positive returns during wartime. Hence, this study suggests investors include ESG indices as safe haven assets at times of crisis and for policymakers to understand the role of uncertainties in reducing price volatility and risk contagion among ESG and energy markets.

A prospective study evaluating the adhesive tape impression for the diagnosis of dermatophytosis in dogs and cats.

Potential contagion and zoonotic risk make rapid diagnosis of dermatophytosis important amongst companion animals. To compare the adhesive tape impression (ATI), trichogram, Wood's lamp (WL) examination and fungal culture for diagnosis of dermatophytosis, and the ATI and trichogram for ease of use. Five dogs and 15 cats with consistent lesions, history and at least two positive dermatophyte test results. After WL examination, one representative lesion per patient was sampled for ATI, trichogram and fungal culture. Microscopic detection of fungal elements on ATI and trichogram were objectively and subjectively compared. The ability of all tests to correctly detect dermatophytosis, and the ability of ATI and trichogram to detect fungal elements in >20 high-powered fields (HPF) were compared using Fisher's exact tests. ATI, trichogram, fungal culture and WL were positive in 100% (20 of 20), 90% (18 of 20), 95% (19 of 20) and 65% (13 of 20) of patients, respectively, with a significant difference between WL and ATI (p = 0.0499). Fungal culture revealed Microsporum. canis (n = 16), Nannizzia gypsea (n = 1), Trichophyton mentagrophytes (n = 1) and T. rubrum (n = 1). Fungal elements were detected in >20 HPF more frequently with ATI (18 of 20) than trichogram (11 of 20) (p = 0.017), and detection required careful scanning to distinguish from background debris more often with trichogram. Fungal elements were located with neutrophil clusters and keratinocyte rafts in addition to abnormal hair fragments more frequently on ATI. ATI had the highest ability to correctly diagnose dermatophytosis, and increased ease of detecting fungal elements compared to trichogram.

Quantifying risk contagion of fluvial flood disaster chain

ABSTRACT The fluvial flood disaster (FFD) poses a great threat to human civilisation. The high water level can cause overtopping, piping, and even breach of the levees, which, in turn, further results in urban flood. These secondary disasters form a disaster chain with multipaths that amplify the risk of the fluvial flood. This work develops a stochastic multi-path network method to quantify the risk contagion for the FFD chain. First, the multi-path network structure for the chain was identified, characterised by reflecting the uncertainties of levee failure modes. Second, a model for the evolutionary probabilities of the chain was proposed by combining the directed network technique with the network structure. Finally, the systematic risk of the chain was quantified by considering the consequence of the disasters. A risk contagion factor was proposed to quantify the attenuation or amplification effect of the risk during the evolution of the chain. A case study in Huizhou, China, shows that the FFD chain is characterised by “small probability” but “extremely high risk”. The most likely path is overtopping-urban flooding, indicating the priority of the area is to heighten the levees. This work paves the way for a more entrepreneurial future on disaster prevention and mitigation.

YOLO-FD: An accurate fish disease detection method based on multi-task learning

Fish diseases often exhibit high risks of contagion, resulting in substantial economic losses. Accurate assessment of fish disease severity during diagnosis using deep learning poses a considerable challenge. Currently, deep learning models mainly focus on single tasks in fish disease detection, such as classification, object detection and segmentation. However, the accurate assessment of fish disease severity requires the integration of multiple dimensions of information, which is beyond the capabilities of traditional single-task methods. Therefore, this paper proposes YOLO-FD, a multi-task learning network specifically designed for simultaneous detection and segmentation. YOLO-FD extends the YOLOv8 backbone by integrating a novel semantic segmentation branch dedicated to precisely segmenting infected areas in diseased fish, while retaining the original object detection branch for identifying infected fish. Weight uncertainty and PCGrad are employed to balance the weights of different losses and to optimize conflicting gradients during the training process. With only a negligible increase in network parameters, YOLO-FD, tested on our constructed Nocardiosis fish dataset, achieves a detection accuracy of 94.2% mAP50 and gets mIOU of 79.4%, showcasing a 0.5% improvement over the baseline YOLOv8 and surpassing the state-of-the-art semantic segmentation network Deeplabv3plus by 4%. Notably, compared to the adapted multi-task network YOLOP, YOLO-FD demonstrates substantial improvements, displaying a 13.7% increase in mAP50-95 and a 15.1% boost in mIOU. On the VOC2012 segmentation dataset, the proposed method exhibits a 3.2% increase in mAP50 and a 2.2% rise in mAP50-95 compared to the baseline. Furthermore, results of the ablation experiment validate the effectiveness and generalization of the proposed multi-task learning approach. Source code is available at https://github.com/feifei-Lee/YOLO-FD.

Risk spillover effect of the new energy market and its hedging effectiveness: New evidence from industry chain

During China’s industrial transformation, studying risk spillover effects and clarifying risk contagion pathways within the new energy industry chain is critical for promoting high-quality development in the new energy. The risk transmission mechanism of the new energy industry chain is explored by constructing a time–frequency index using a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive model in this paper. Additionally, we also further analyze the portfolio and hedging effectiveness of the new energy market. The findings reveal that, first, the downstream market serves as the primary risk source, propagating risk through the industry chain to the midstream and upstream sectors within the new energy industry chain contagion system. Second, the risk spillover effect of the new energy market has significant heterogeneity and time-varying due to the impact of short-term frequency domain drivers and extreme events. Third, the portfolio significantly reduces the investment risk of a single asset. With the extension of the investment horizon, investors’ portfolio weights in the upstream, midstream and downstream industries gradually tend to be even.

Financial Risk Identification and Control in the Openness Context: A System Dynamics Approach to Renminbi Internationalization

In an attempt to control a series of domestic and foreign financial risks amid the internationalization of Renminbi (RMB), China’s currency, this article categorizes these risks into five types: excessive volatility risk of exchange rate, balance of payments risks, policy risks, crisis contagion risks, and excessive volatility risk of financial asset prices. By employing system dynamics simulation models and sensitivity analysis, this paper examines strategies for financial risk control. Results indicate that the impacts of crisis contagion risk and balance of payments risk are the most significant, and that financial risks are extremely sensitive in such aspects as the degree of capital openness, exchange rate volatility, and foreign trade dependency. The paper suggests adopting strategies like gradually opening China’s capital accounts, maintaining its exchange rate fluctuations within a reasonable range, stabilizing its dependency on foreign trade, and ensuring that its growth rate of M2 matches that of the nominal GDP – a combined effort to control the complicated financial risks arising from various sources.

Risk contagion in interbank lending networks: A multi-agent-based modeling and simulation perspective

The interbank lending network, while facilitating transactions, poses risk contagion in the banking system. To address challenges in existing research, this paper models the interbank lending network using a multi-agent approach and generates a dynamic network through a bidirectional matching mechanism(BiMM). Additionally, We divide banks into three categories based on realistic bank balance sheet data. Given the fact that banks of different categories exhibit different degrees of contagion, we propose the weighted DebtRank (W-DebtRank). Then, comprehensive simulation analysis is conducted on the risk contagion of heterogeneous banks in the dynamic network using W-DebtRank. The proposed method addresses four issues: the heterogeneity of banks, the dynamic nature of networks, the practicality of lending strategies, and the comprehensiveness of risk analysis. The model is validated using the SRISK metric and the Monte Carlo-based SYMBOL simulation model. Through multiple perspectives in simulation experiments, the risk contagion process among banks is deeply investigated in our paper.

Young women, dating apps, and affective assemblages in the time of pandemic: No relationship is a linear transition to a fixed point

The article aims to explore the centrality in young women’s life of the affective assemblages that took shape in their relationship with digital media during the pandemic, particularly fostered by the use of dating apps. Emotional and affective connection is and has been prevented by the pandemic in the form of physical distancing and the risk of contagion, but also by regulations that in some states, such as Italy, have only recognised legitimate familial relationships to grant permission to mobility (like marriage, birth family). So, what happens when people cannot take care and be sustained by their affective web of relationships? On one hand, this negative situation limited desire, mutual sharing, and pleasure as potential pushes for social change, and on the other hand, it opened up new mediated spaces in which to cultivate different and unexpected effects and relationships. Therefore, the article looks at the role of the affective realm as a political space linked to social change, and explores the use of dating apps by young women during the pandemic as an element of a broader affective assemblage. The article follows a subgroup of young women who used dating apps during the Covid lockdown over the three waves of interviews. The young women are aged 24–30 years and have been encountered as a part of a longitudinal research project on the transition to adulthood in Italy conducted from 2020 to 2022. Specifically, it focuses on those biographies of youth who are not in a stable romantic relationship, and often live alone, and who have therefore experienced unprecedented forms of emotional/affective isolation and have recurred to dating apps for different purposes. The goal here is to analyse the unexpected uses of these apps – not only centred in erotic or romantic purpose – and the online (and sometimes offline) relationships that ensue: for example, making sense of rarefied and solitary time, building relations of care in everyday life. These assemblages – made up of bodies, digital media, and affects – intervene in the current context of normalised crisis and precarity, characterised by a digitally saturated environment, giving the possibility to young people to produce and enjoy spaces for non-normative/linear/straight desire and sharing that go beyond the pandemic.

Burial objects” or “Birds of a feather”: The contagion effect of financial violations in business groups——The evidence from China

This study explores the conagion effect of financial violations within Chinese business groups from 2012 to 2021. Findings reveal that violations lead to stock price declines in member companies, with contagion primarily driven by irrational investor sentiment (“burial objects”) over the short term. The financial and governance characteristics of infected companies deteriorate (“birds of a feather”), but do not impact their long-term stock returns. Mitigating investor irrationality in infected companies helps curb contagion. This research contributes to business group governance and risk contagion theories, revealing a unique irrational contagion channel of financial violations within business groups in emerging markets.

Is the Russian Green Bond Market Strong Enough to Hedge in the Crisis Times?

The scope of this research has two facets. First, we study the spillover effects between the Russian green bonds and the leading capital market’s ‘indexes before and after the February 2022 events. Second, the identified level of asset connectedness permits to identify portfolio management implications for the analyzed assets. To reveal the spillover effects, we applied the vector autoregressive model and created a synthetic index to capture the dynamics of the green bonds market which included 14 green bond issues between 2021 and 2023 in Russia. We analyze oil & gas, electrical utilities, metals & extraction, chemical sectors collectively referred to as “pollution intensive indexes”. The paper contributes by discoveringthat the total connectedness index (TCI) between Russian green bond market and pollution intensive indexes changed over time and increased after the outbreak of the conflict. Additionally, the paper is novel on revealing the relationship between low hedging effectiveness and hedging ratio of green bond and energy, metals and extraction, sustainability and oil and gas indexes which indicate no need for hedging after February events. The optimal bivariate portfolio weights analysis shows that Russian green bonds market is an outstanding instrument for assets portfolio management during geopolitical conflict. These findings have implications for the government and other stakeholders to manage both the contagion and climate risks during the military conflict.

Active offer of Tdap vaccination in a cohort of healthcare workers of Maternal and Neonatal Department: Data from a large hospital in Southern Italy

Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable respiratory disease. Pertussis vaccination is currently mandatory for all children in Italy, and is administered in three doses at the beginning of the third, fifth, and twelfth month of life, respectively. Booster doses are also recommended at five-six years, at eleven-twelve years, and then once every ten years. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are a high-risk population for pertussis. Strategies to increase HCWs’ compliance to this vaccination have not been investigated in depth. Our study investigates the determinants of acceptance of a “soft nudge” vaccination campaign in a large hospital in Apulia (Southern Italy).HCWs from the Gynaecology and Neonatology Units of Bari’s Policlinico General Hospital were screened in June 2023 for pertussis vaccination. Non-vaccinated subjects were offered a vaccination appointment. Vaccination determinants were studied, and a logistic regression model was built to identify determinants that significantly influence vaccination acceptance.At the time of screening, only 31.34% of target HCWs (68/217) had already been vaccinated. After the active call intervention, vaccine coverage rose to 70.00% (152/217). Significantly higher coverage was found in the Neonatology Unit (30/43, 69.77%) than in the Gynaecology unit (54/106, 50.94%) (Chi2: 4.41; p-value: 0.036). A logistic regression model confirmed a higher compliance to vaccination in HCWs staffed in the Neonatology Unit (Chi2: 2.08; 95%CI: 1.04 – 4.73; p-value: 0.038).Our intervention increased vaccination coverage in a high-risk cohort. The solicitation was effective, as communication with a trained specialist might have improved the subjects’ perception of vaccination and individual risk of contagion and transmission to others. A synergistic approach, mixing active call with a vaccination mandate, might have greater effectiveness.

Stability Analysis of a Credit Risk Contagion Model with Distributed Delay

Stability Analysis of a Credit Risk Contagion Model with Distributed Delay

Having any mental health condition before the COVID-19 pandemic as a risk factor of COVID-19 contagion during the first year of pandemic: A Spanish adult cohort.

Numerous studies suggest that subjects suffering from a mental health condition before the COVID-19 pandemic were at higher risk of contagion, but mostly are cross-sectional or retrospective. The BIOVAL-D-COVID-19 is a longitudinal cohort study design with 922 subjects who full filled two evaluations from an online survey of Spanish residents before and during the pandemic. Mental health conditions assessed were: Major Depressive Episode (MDE), Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours (STB) and subthreshold of panic and bipolar disorder (BD). Mental health screening instruments used were: the Spanish version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) version 3.0 for the evaluation of MDE, the GAD-7 scale to evaluate GAD; STB was evaluated with four items from the CIDI questionnaire. Panic Disorder and BD were screened from a modified and self-reported version of the CIDI. A bivariate plus five logistic regression models were developed for each mental health condition adjusted by socio-demographic variables; employment status; general and physical health; comorbidity; and including all previous variables and the other mental health conditions. We found in bivariate model that MDE; GAD and STB were statistically significant risk factors of contagion of COVID-19. The logistic regression models developed reveal that having a previous GAD (aOR 3.30 1.31-8.31) or STB (aOR 2.16 CI 95% 1.01-4.62) was statistically significant associated with COVID-19 contagion, independently of all variables included. MDE was not a risk factor of contagion when it was adjusted by comorbidity (aOR 0.99 CI 95% 0.47-2.09). It is recommended to detect those subjects with previous GAD or STB as vulnerable groups of infection to reduce contagion rates.

What Has the Pandemic Taught Us About Caregiving? Mental Health in Family Caregivers of People with Dementia One Year After the Lock-Down Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Caregiving for a person with dementia is considered a situation of chronic stress, with consequences on caregivers' physical and psychological health. The usual challenges of dementia care were intensified during the pandemic due to the risk of contagion, social isolation measures, and decrease in healthcare resources. The COVID-19 pandemic increased the stress both in the persons with dementia and their caregivers. This commentary reflects on the long-term effects of the pandemic on caregivers' mental health, focusing on the study by Olavarría and colleagues and drawing future research lines for culturally diverse family caregivers.