License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY 3.0)
When quoting this document, please refer to the following
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2017.32
URN: urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-81558
URL: http://dagstuhl.sunsite.rwth-aachen.de/volltexte/2017/8155/
Go to the corresponding LIPIcs Volume Portal

Schuldenzucker, Steffen ; Seuken, Sven ; Battiston, Stefano

Finding Clearing Payments in Financial Networks with Credit Default Swaps is PPAD-complete

pdf-format:
LIPIcs-ITCS-2017-32.pdf (0.6 MB)

Abstract

We consider the problem of clearing a system of interconnected banks that have been exposed to a shock on their assets. Eisenberg and Noe (2001) showed that when banks can only enter into simple debt contracts with each other, then a clearing vector of payments can be computed in polynomial time. In this paper, we show that the situation changes radically when banks can also enter into credit default swaps (CDSs), i.e., financial derivative contracts that depend on the default of another bank. We prove that computing an approximate solution to the clearing problem with sufficiently small constant error is PPAD-complete. To do this, we demonstrate how financial networks with debt and CDSs can encode arithmetic operations such as addition and multiplication. Our results have practical impact for network stress tests and reveal computational complexity as a new concern regarding the stability of the financial system.

BibTeX - Entry

@InProceedings{schuldenzucker_et_al:LIPIcs:2017:8155,
  author =	{Steffen Schuldenzucker and Sven Seuken and Stefano Battiston},
  title =	{{Finding Clearing Payments in Financial Networks with Credit Default Swaps is PPAD-complete}},
  booktitle =	{8th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2017)},
  pages =	{32:1--32:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-029-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2017},
  volume =	{67},
  editor =	{Christos H. Papadimitriou},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl--Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2017/8155},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-81558},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2017.32},
  annote =	{Keywords: Financial Networks, Credit Default Swaps, Clearing Systems, Arithmetic Circuits, PPAD}
}

Keywords: Financial Networks, Credit Default Swaps, Clearing Systems, Arithmetic Circuits, PPAD
Collection: 8th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2017)
Issue Date: 2017
Date of publication: 28.11.2017

DROPS-Home | Fulltext Search | Imprint | Privacy Published by LZI