Multi-Agent Financial Network (MAFN) Model of US Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO)

A database driven multi-agent model has been developed with automated access to US bank level FDIC Call Reports that yield data on balance sheet and off balance sheet activity, respectively, in Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) and Credit Default Swaps (CDS). The simultaneous accumulation of RMBS assets on US banks' balance sheets and also large counterparty exposures from CDS positions characterized the $2 trillion Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) market. The latter imploded at the end of 2007 with large scale systemic risk consequences. Based on US FDIC bank data, that could have been available to the regulator at the time, the authors investigate how a CDS negative carry …