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Main Authors: Ouyang, Fu, Yang, Thomas T., Yao, Wenying
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03598
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author Ouyang, Fu
Yang, Thomas T.
Yao, Wenying
author_facet Ouyang, Fu
Yang, Thomas T.
Yao, Wenying
contents Empirical measures of financial connectedness based on Forecast Error Variance Decompositions (FEVDs) often yield dense network structures that obscure true transmission channels and complicate the identification of systemic risk. This paper proposes a novel information-criterion-based approach to uncover sparse, economically meaningful financial networks. By reformulating FEVD-based connectedness as a regression problem, we develop a model selection framework that consistently recovers the active set of spillover channels. We extend this method to generalized FEVDs to accommodate correlated shocks and introduce a data-driven procedure for tuning the penalty parameter using pseudo-out-of-sample forecast performance. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate the approach's effectiveness with finite samples and its robustness to approximately sparse networks and heavy-tailed errors. Applications to global stock markets, S&P 500 sectoral indices, and commodity futures highlight the prevalence of sparse networks in empirical settings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_03598
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Uncovering Sparse Financial Networks with Information Criteria
Ouyang, Fu
Yang, Thomas T.
Yao, Wenying
Econometrics
Empirical measures of financial connectedness based on Forecast Error Variance Decompositions (FEVDs) often yield dense network structures that obscure true transmission channels and complicate the identification of systemic risk. This paper proposes a novel information-criterion-based approach to uncover sparse, economically meaningful financial networks. By reformulating FEVD-based connectedness as a regression problem, we develop a model selection framework that consistently recovers the active set of spillover channels. We extend this method to generalized FEVDs to accommodate correlated shocks and introduce a data-driven procedure for tuning the penalty parameter using pseudo-out-of-sample forecast performance. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate the approach's effectiveness with finite samples and its robustness to approximately sparse networks and heavy-tailed errors. Applications to global stock markets, S&P 500 sectoral indices, and commodity futures highlight the prevalence of sparse networks in empirical settings.
title Uncovering Sparse Financial Networks with Information Criteria
topic Econometrics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03598