Search results

The purpose of this paper is to test whether the 2007 identification of commonality in liquidity by Galariotis and Giouvris for the UK is robust to different methodological approaches; to find whether commonality is priced; and to identify how changes in trading regimes, hence liquidity provision, affect the relationship between commonality and excess returns.

The paper builds on the 2001 methodology of Huberman and Halka. In addition it extracts common factors using principal component analysis to test the effect of commonality on excess returns.

The findings of this paper confirm the presence of a systematic time‐varying component in UK spreads (under a different approach) even after controlling for well‐known spread determining variables.

The paper provides original evidence on the presence and the effect of systematic liquidity on asset pricing in the UK, showing that it is sensitive to the nature of trading regimes. It is concluded that in order‐driven regimes the effect of commonality on asset pricing is reduced, hence policy makers should consider this when deciding on trading systems

This chapter investigates the determinants of the volatility of spread in the over-the-counter foreign exchange market and examines whether the relationships differ in the crisis periods. We compute the measures for the volatility of liquidity by using bid-ask spread data sampled at a high frequency of five minutes. By examining 11 currencies over a 13-year sample period, we utilize a balanced dynamic panel regression to investigate whether the risk associated with the currencies quoted or trading activity affects the variability of liquidity provision in the FX market and examine whether the crisis periods have any effect. We find that both the level of spread and volatility of spread increases during the crisis periods for the currencies of emerging countries. In addition, we find increases in risks associated with the currencies proxied by realized volatility during the crisis periods. We also show risks associated with the currency are the major determinants of the variability of liquidity and that these relationships strengthen during periods of uncertainty. First, we develop measures to capture the variability of liquidity. Our measures to capture the variability of liquidity are non-parametric and model-free variable. Second, we contribute to the debate of whether variability of liquidity is adverse to market participants by examining what drives the variability of liquidity. Finally, we analyze seven crisis periods, allowing us to document the effect of the crises on determinants of variability of liquidity over time.

The purpose of this paper is to relate the fees paid to IPO underwriters to the nature and quality of the services they provide.

Controlling for the characteristics of the firm going public, the risk associated with the offering, and the reputation of the underwriter, the authors study on a sample of Italian IPOs whether a formal commitment by underwriters to provide ancillary services allows them to charge higher fees.

The authors document that asking underwriters to stabilize stock price is costly to the issuer, while to support liquidity is not. The authors’ also show that underwriters stabilize IPOs that really need it, whereas the provision of liquidity support does not seem to be always aligned with the issuer’s interest.

Investigating the Italian underwriting market is instructive for two main reasons. First, the institutional setting in IPOs is similar to most continental European countries, but significantly different from the US market. For instance, allocation policies in US IPOs are discretionary for both retail and institutional investors, while in Europe shares cannot be discretionarily allocated to retail investors. Second, the Italian market offers the opportunity to study the going-public decision outside the typical Anglo-Saxon financial systems. This is of interest because while both the UK and the USA have well-developed equity markets and a related industry of financial intermediation centered on providing equity, our analysis sheds light on financial intermediation of IPOs in a bank-centered system.

This paper aims to provides an example of how government and central bank policies that promote market liquidity (e.g., quantitative easing programs) can change the structure of the banking system.

The nexus between liquidity policies and financial networks is addressed through an example that captures stylized features of the interbank market. In the example discussed, two scenarios are considered: one with and another without central bank/government liquidity provision, leading to two different network structures that are then used to study the likelihood of contagion.

The example provided shows that government and central bank policies that promote market liquidity can lead to financial networks that are better capitalized (net worth of the banking system is higher) but, at the same time, more fragile (higher likelihood of bank failures).

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first attempt to model the formation of a financial network with an explicit mechanism accounting for government and central bank policies that affect market liquidity, which, in turn, could be interpreted as a quantitative easing program.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the events leading up to the Great Recession, the US Federal Reserve’s response to what it perceived to be a short-term liquidity problem, and the programs it put in place to address liquidity needs from 2007 through the third quarter of 2008.

These programs were designed to channel liquidity to some of the largest institutions, most of which were primary dealers. We describe these programs, examine available evidence regarding their effectiveness and detail which institutions received the largest amounts under each program.

We argue that increasing financial fragility and potential insolvencies in several major institutions were evident prior to the crisis. While it is inherently difficult to disentangle issues of illiquidity from issues of insolvency, failure to recognize and address those insolvency problems delayed necessary adjustments, undermined confidence in the financial system and may have exacerbated the crisis.

Disentangling issues of illiquidity from issues of insolvency is inherently difficult and so it is not possible to specify a definitive counterfactual scenario. Nonetheless, failure to recognize and address the insolvency problems in several major institutions until more than a year after the crisis had begun delayed the necessary adjustment and undermined confidence in the financial system.

This paper is among the first to analyze data showing the amounts of lending and the distribution of these loans across institutions under the Fed’s special liquidity facilities during the first 18 months of the financial crisis.

On 14 September 2007, after failing to find a “White Knight” to take over its business, Northern Rock bank turned to the Bank of England (the Bank) for a liquidity lifeline. This was duly provided but failed to quell the financial panic, which manifested itself in the first fully‐blown nation‐wide deposit run on a UK bank for 140 years. The purpose of this paper is to analyse why these events unfolded and what can be done to prevent a repetition.

This paper briefly explains the background to these extraordinary events before setting out, in some detail, the tensions and flaws in UK arrangements which allowed the Northern Rock spectacle to occur.

None of the interested parties – the Bank, the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury – emerges with their reputation intact, and the policy areas requiring immediate attention, at both the domestic and international level, are highlighted. Some reform recommendations are also provided for good measure, particularly in the area of formal deposit protection.

The analysis and recommendations contained in this paper are offered up as a contribution towards and stimulant of this wider debate which is urgently needed, given the continuing threats faced by the domestic and international financial system.

The purpose of this paper is to present measures and policies followed during the Greek fiscal crisis to safeguard financial stability.

Greece since 2009 was subjected to the Excessive Deficit Procedure and a government debt crisis due to the arrival of the global economic crisis leading to a major economic and banking crisis. Two huge bailout loans and programs helped Greece avoid default. However the second bailout loan and participation of banks in the Private Sector Involvement caused losses to the banking system that amounted to €37.7 billion. To deal with the prospect of potential bank failure Bank of Greece the central bank in cooperation with national and international authorities developed many strategies to safeguard financial stability such as cash management and liquidity operations establishment and operation of Greek Financial Stability Fund (GFSF) institutional framework for recapitalization and resolution of credit institutions.

The first step was to support bank liquidity pressures. In the face of these pressures the Eurosystem’s monetary policy operations provided lending to euro that ended 2010 and accounted to €97.6 billion. The second step was to establish a legal and regulatory framework for bank resolution and assess funds needed to recapitalize banks through stress tests and diagnostic assessments. Results showed that during 2012–2014 the Greek banking sector would require approximately €40.5 billion for strengthening its capital base of which €27.5 billion corresponded to the four “core banks”. Bank of Greece and GFSF managed to complete a €48.2 billion bank recapitalization in June 2013 of which the first €24.4 billion was injected into the four biggest Greek banks. In return Bank of Greece received a number of shares in those banks which it can now sell again during the upcoming years. The third step of policies was to implement resolution and restructuring measures. From October 2011 to March 2014 12 banks resolved through the new legal and regulatory framework under either a transfer order (order to transfer assets and liabilities to a transferee credit institution) or establishment of a bridge bank. All policies succeeded to safeguard Greek financial stability and restore bank losses that resulted from Greek public debt “haircut”.

To the best of the author’s knowledge this is the first paper examining this issue.

The debate over the possible extension of transparency regulation in Europe to include sovereign bonds has opened up a number of other issues in need of serious consideration. One such issue is the appropriateness of the entire infrastructure supporting the trading of European sovereign bonds. In recent years, sovereign issuers have supported the development of an electronic inter‐dealer market but have remained unconcerned with the opacity of dealer‐to‐customer trading. The degree of segmentation in this market is high relative to what exists in nearly all other financial markets. The purpose of this paper is to outline the transparency proposals for European sovereign bond markets.

This paper explores why European sovereign bond markets have developed in such a segmented way and considers how this structure could be altered to improve transparency without adversely affecting liquidity, efficiency or the benefits enjoyed by primary dealers and issuers.

It is suggested that the structure of the market could be improved greatly if the largest and most active investors were permitted access to the inter‐dealer electronic trading platforms. This would solve a number of market imperfections and increase the proportion of market activity that is conducted in a transparent way.

The paper argues that sovereign issuers in Europe have the means to provide incentives that would influence dealers to support reduced segmentation. Some practical examples of how this could be achieved are provided and the potential benefits are outlined.

An agent-based market simulation is utilized to examine the impact of high frequency trading (HFT) on various aspects of the stock market. This study aims to provide a baseline understanding of the effect of HFT on markets by using a paradigm of zero-intelligence traders and examining the resulting structural changes.

A continuous double auction setting with zero-intelligence traders is used by adapting the model of Gode and Sunder (1993) to include algorithmic high frequency (HF) traders who retrade by marking up their shares by a fixed percentage. The simulation examines the effects of two independent factors, the number of HF traders and their markup percentage, on several dependent variables, principally volume, market efficiency, trader surplus and volatility. Results of the simulations are tested with two-way ANOVA and Tukey’s post hoc tests.

In the simulation results, trading volume, efficiency and total surplus vary directly with the number of traders employing HFT. Results also reveal that market volatility increased with the number of HF traders.

Increases in volume, efficiency and total surplus represent market improvements due to the trading activities of HF traders. However, the increase in volatility is worrisome, and some of the surplus increase appears to come at the expense of long-term-oriented investors. However, the relatively recent development of HFT and dearth of appropriate data make direct calibration of any model difficult.

The simulation study focuses on the structural impact of HF traders on several aspects of the simulated market, with the effects isolated from other noise and problems with empirical data. A baseline for comparison and suggestions for future research are established.