We estimate asset return correlations among banks using equity return correlations, following Hull and White (2004). Information from the equity market is well-suited for this purpose because the market is highly liquid and can incorporate new information on the relationship between banks more quickly than accounting data on bank assets. Equity and asset correlations are equivalent when the leverage ratio is constant, so equity correlations are a reasonable approximation for asset correlations over a short horizon (Huang et al., 2009). For our analysis, the hypothetical insurance contract for the DIP measure covers the default horizon of one quarter.