To Fully Net or Not to Net: Adverse Effects of Partial Multilateral Netting

We study a financial network where forced liquidations of an illiquid asset have a negative impact on its price, thus reinforcing network contagion. We prove uniqueness of the clearing asset price and liability payments under no, partial, and full multilateral netting of interbank liabilities. We show that partial versus full multilateral netting increases bank shortfall, and reduces clearing asset price and aggregate bank surplus. We also show that partial multilateral netting can be worse than no netting at all.