Search Results
Working Paper
Arbitrage and Liquidity: Evidence from a Panel of Exchange Traded Funds
Market liquidity is expected to facilitate arbitrage, which in turn should affect the liquidity of the assets traded by arbitrageurs. We study this relationship using a unique dataset of equity and bond ETFs compiled from big trade-level data. We find that liquidity is an important determinant of the efficacy of the ETF arbitrage. For less liquid bond ETFs, Granger-causality tests and impulse responses suggest that this relationship is stronger and more persistent, and liquidity spillovers are observed from portfolio constituents to ETF shares. Our results inform the design of synthetic ...
Working Paper
Private and Public Liquidity Provision in Over-the-Counter Markets
We show that trade frictions in OTC markets result in inefficient private liquidity provision. We develop a dynamic model of market-based financial intermediation with a two-way interaction between primary credit markets and secondary OTC markets. Private allocations are generically inefficient because investors and firms fail to internalize how their actions affect liquidity in secondary markets. This inefficiency can lead to liquidity that is suboptimally low or high compared to the second best. Our analysis provides a rationale for the regulation and public provision of liquidity and the ...
Working Paper
Over-the-Counter Market Liquidity and Securities Lending
This paper studies how over-the-counter market liquidity is affected by securities lending. We combine micro-data on corporate bond market trades with securities lending transactions and individual corporate bond holdings by U.S. insurance companies. Applying a difference-in-differences empirical strategy, we show that the shutdown of AIG's securities lending program in 2008 caused a statistically and economically significant reduction in the market liquidity of corporate bonds predominantly held by AIG. We also show that an important mechanism behind the decrease in corporate bond liquidity ...
Discussion Paper
Corporate Bond Market Liquidity Redux: More Price-Based Evidence
In a recent post, we presented some preliminary evidence suggesting that corporate bond market liquidity is ample. That evidence relied on bid-ask spread and price impact measures. The findings generated significant discussion, with some market participants wondering about the magnitudes of our estimates, their robustness, and whether such measures adequately capture recent changes in liquidity. In this post, we revisit these measures to more thoroughly document how they have varied over time and the importance of particular estimation approaches, trade size, trade frequency, and the ...
Working Paper
Bond Market Intermediation and the Role of Repo
This paper models the important role that repurchase agreements (repos) play in bond market intermediation. Not only do repos allow dealers to finance their activities, but they also increase dealers' ability to satisfy levered client demands without having to adjust their holdings of risky assets. In effect, the ability to borrow specific assets for delivery allows dealers to source large quantity of assets without taking ownership of them. Larger levered client orders imply larger asset borrowing demands, thus increasing the borrowing cost for the asset (i.e., repo specialness). Dealers ...
Working Paper
Measuring the Liquidity Profile of Mutual Funds
We measure the liquidity profile of open-end mutual funds using the sensitivity of their daily returns to aggregate liquidity. We study how this sensitivity changes around real-activity macroeconomic announcements that reveal large surprises about the state of the economy and after three relevant market events: Bill Gross's departure from PIMCO, Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund's suspension of redemptions, and the effect of Lehman Brothers' collapse on Neuberger Berman. Results show that, following negative news, the sensitivity to aggregate liquidity increases for less-liquid mutual funds, ...
Working Paper
Securities Lending as Wholesale Funding : Evidence from the U.S. Life Insurance Industry
The existing literature implicitly or explicitly assumes that securities lenders primarily respond to demand from borrowers and reinvest their cash collateral through short-term markets. Using a new dataset that matches every U.S. life insurer?s bond portfolio, as well as their lending and reinvestment decisions, to the universe of securities lending transactions, we offer compelling evidence for an alternative strategy, in which securities lending programs are used to finance a portfolio of long-dated assets. We discuss how the liquidity and maturity mismatch associated with using securities ...