Financial institutions are connected to each other by a series of bilateral transactions. In normal times, institutions' connections may result in efficient risk transfer. But in crises, connections can facilitate contagion - as initial problems lead to chains of defaults and liquidity shortages...

Over the past few years the CDS market's role has evolved from mostly providing default protection towards credit risk trading. The first-ever credit event in a developed country's sovereign CDS has further highlighted the importance of the CDS market from a macro-prudential perspective....