Search Results
Discussion Paper
A conference on liquidity in frictional markets
This Policy Discussion Paper summarizes the papers that were presented at the Liquidity in Frictional Markets conference in November 2008. The papers, which looked at markets for assets as diverse as houses, bank loans, and electronic funds transfer, all explored that amorphous concept called liquidity and how its presenceor absenceaffects the economy.
Working Paper
Liquidity in frictional asset markets
On November 14-15, 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland hosted a conference on ?Liquidity in Frictional Asset Markets.? In this paper we review the literature on asset markets with trading frictions in both finance and monetary theory using a simple search-theoretic model, and we discuss the papers presented at the conference in the context of this literature. We will show the diversity of topics covered in this literature, e.g., the dynamics of housing and credit markets, the functioning of payment systems, optimal monetary policy and the cost of inflation, the role of banks, the ...
Working Paper
Crashes and recoveries in illiquid markets
We study the dynamics of liquidity provision by dealers during an asset market crash, described as a temporary negative shock to investors? aggregate asset demand. We consider a class of dynamic market settings where dealers can trade continuously with each other, while trading between dealers and investors is subject to delays and involves bargaining. We derive conditions on fundamentals, such as preferences, market structure and the characteristics of the market crash (e.g., severity, persistence) under which dealers provide liquidity to investors following the crash. We also characterize ...
Working Paper
Liquidity and the threat of fraudulent assets
We study an over-the-counter (OTC) market with bilateral meetings and bargaining where the usefulness of assets, as means of payment or collateral, is limited by the threat of fraudulent practices. We assume that agents can produce fraudulent assets at a positive cost, which generates endogenous upper bounds on the quantity of each asset that can be sold, or posted as collateral in the OTC market. Each endogenous, asset-specific, resalability constraint depends on the vulnerability of the asset to fraud, on the frequency of trade, and on the current and future prices of the asset. In ...
Report
Government Guarantees and the Valuation of American Banks
Banks' ratio of the market value to book value of their equity was close to 1 until the 1990s, then more than doubled during the 1996-2007 period, and fell again to values close to 1 after the 2008 financial crisis. Sarin and Summers (2016) and Chousakos and Gorton (2017) argue that the drop in banks' market-to-book ratio since the crisis is due to a loss in bank franchise value or profitability. In this paper we argue that banks' market-to-book ratio is the sum of two components: franchise value and the value of government guarantees. We empirically decompose the ratio between these two ...
Report
The market for OTC derivatives
We develop a model of equilibrium entry, trade, and price formation in over-the-counter (OTC) markets. Banks trade derivatives to share an aggregate risk subject to two trading frictions: they must pay a fixed entry cost, and they must limit the size of the positions taken by their traders because of risk-management concerns. Although all banks in our model are endowed with access to the same trading technology, some large banks endogenously arise as ?dealers,? trading mainly to provide intermediation services, while medium sized banks endogenously participate as ?customers? mainly to share ...
Report
Measuring the financial soundness of U.S. firms, 1926-2012
Building on the Merton (1974) and Leland (1994) structural models of credit risk, we develop a simple, transparent, and robust method for measuring the financial soundness of individual firms using data on their equity volatility. We use this method to retrace quantitatively the history of firms? financial soundness during U.S. business cycles over most of the last century. We highlight three main findings. First, the three worst recessions between 1926 and 2012 coincided with insolvency crises, but other recessions did not. Second, fluctuations in asset volatility appear to drive variation ...
Working Paper
The Evolution of the Corporate Bond Market: A Theoretical Analysis
We develop a model of a dealer-intermediated over-the-counter market designed to study three major changes in the structure of the U.S. corporate bond market: the increase in dealers’ balance sheet costs, the emergence of electronic trading platforms, and the growing presence of bond mutual funds and ETFs. Our model provides a unified analysis of these changes, clarifies the economic channels at play, and allows us to quantify their effects on a variety of market outcomes. Our quantitative analysis suggests that, while electronic trading significantly reduced the cost of raising capital in ...
Working Paper
Heterogeneity in Decentralized Asset Markets
We study a search and bargaining model of asset markets in which investors? heterogeneous valuations for the asset are drawn from an arbitrary distribution. We present a solution technique that makes the model fully tractable, and allows us to provide a complete characterization of the unique equilibrium, in closed form, both in and out of steady state. Using this characterization, we derive several novel implications that highlight the importance of heterogeneity. In particular, we show how some investors endogenously emerge as intermediaries, even though they have no advantage in contacting ...
Working Paper
Competing for order flow in OTC markets
The authors develop a model of a two-sided asset market in which trades are intermediated by dealers and are bilateral. Dealers compete to attract order flow by posting the terms at which they execute trades, which can include prices, quantities, and execution times, and investors direct their orders toward dealers that offer the most attractive terms of trade. Equilibrium outcomes have the following properties. First, investors face a trade-off between trading costs and speeds of execution. Second, the asset market is endogenously segmented in the sense that investors with different asset ...