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ABSTRACT: In the recent financial crisis we saw liquidity in the stock market drying up as a precursor to the crisis in the real economy. We show that such effects are not new; in fact, we find a strong relation between stock market liquidity and the business cycle. We also show that investors’ portfolio compositions change with the business cycle and that investor participation is related to market liquidity. This suggests that systematic liquidity variation is related to a “flight to quality” during economic downturns. Overall, our results provide a new explanation for the observed commonality in liquidity.
The Journal of Finance 01/2011; 66(1):139 - 176. · 4.22 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In recent years, a number of electronic limit order markets have reintroduced market makers for some securities (Designated Market Makers). This trend has mainly been initiated by financial intermediaries and listed firms themselves, without any regulatory pressure. In this paper we ask why firms are willing to pay to improve the secondary market liquidity of their shares. We show that a contributing factor in this decision is the likelihood that the firm will interact with the capital markets in the near future, either because they have capital needs, or that they are planning to repurchase shares. We also find some evidence of agency costs associated with the initiation of a market maker agreement as the probability of observing insider trades increases when liquidity improves.
University of Stavanger, UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance. 01/2010;
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ABSTRACT: In recent years, a number of electronic limit order markets have reintroduced market makers for some securities (Designated Market Makers). This trend has mainly been initiated by financial intermediaries and listed firms themselves, without any regulatory pressure. In this paper we ask why firms are willing to pay to improve the secondary market liquidity of their shares. We show that a contributing factor in this decision is the likelihood that the firm will interact with the capital markets in the near future, either because they have capital needs, or that they are planning to repurchase shares. We also find some evidence of agency costs associated with the initiation of a market maker agreement as the probability of observing insider trades increases when liquidity improves.
Norges Bank, Working Paper. 01/2010;
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ABSTRACT: We document a strong relation between stock market liquidity and the business cycle. Stock market liquidity worsens when the economy is slowing down, and this effect is most pronounced for small firms. Using data for both the US and Norway, we show that stock market liquidity predicts the current and future state of the economy both in-and out-of-sample. We also show some evidence that can shed light on the link between stock markets and the real economy. Using stock ownership data from Norway, we find that the portfolio compositions of investors change with the business cycle, and that investor participation is correlated with market liquidity, especially for the smallest firms. This suggest a "flight to quality" during economic downturns where traders desire to move away from equity investments in general, and within their equity portfolios, move from smaller/less liquid stocks to large/liquid stocks. Overall, our results provide an new explanation for the observed commonality in liquidity.
10/2009;
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ABSTRACT: The US economy is arguably following an unsustainable trajectory. The main indicators of this are a large current account deficit, a large federal budget deficit and trend-wise increasing costs of Social Security and Medicare. In this chapter, we will discuss these observations and to what extent the financial and economic crisis may have changed the outlook. Before this, we need to define what we mean by sustainability. An often used definition of sustainability is that the inter-temporal budget restriction is satisfied.
Norges Bank, Working Paper. 01/2009;
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ABSTRACT: This paper evaluates 14 macroeconomic variables’ ability to forecast changes in monthly liquidity on the Scandinavian order-driven stock exchanges. Every macroeconomic variable is evaluated both out-of-sample and in-sample and against three different benchmark models of market variables and asymmetries concerning up and down markets. Policy rate on Copenhagen, broad money growth on Oslo, and short-term interest rate and flows from mutual funds on Stockholm significantly improve the out-of-sample forecasts of liquidity at these exchanges. However, most proposed macroeconomic variables can be rejected as forecasters of liquidity on the Scandinavian stock exchanges. There are many variables that predict in-sample liquidity that do not forecast out-of-sample. This stresses the importance of conducting out-of-sample tests when examining whether macroeconomic variables predict liquidity. In addition, this is the first paper confirming that stock market liquidity can be forecast out-of-sample.
Norges Bank, Working Paper. 01/2008;
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ABSTRACT: This paper evaluates 14 macroeconomic variables’ ability to forecast changes in monthly liquidity on the Scandinavian order-driven stock exchanges. Every macroeconomic variable is evaluated both out-of-sample and in-sample and against three different benchmark models of market variables and asymmetries concerning up and down markets. Policy rate on Copenhagen, broad money growth on Oslo, and short-term interest rate and flows from mutual funds on Stockholm significantly improve the out-of-sample forecasts of liquidity at these exchanges. However, most proposed macroeconomic variables can be rejected as forecasters of liquidity on the Scandinavian stock exchanges. There are many variables that predict in-sample liquidity that do not forecast out-of-sample. This stresses the importance of conducting out-of-sample tests when examining whether macroeconomic variables predict liquidity. In addition, this is the first paper confirming that stock market liquidity can be forecast out-of-sample.
Norges Bank, Working Paper. 01/2008;
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ABSTRACT: Matching university places to students is not as clear cut or as straightforward as it ought to be. By investigating the matching algorithm used by the German central clearinghouse for university admissions in medicine and related subjects, we show that a procedure designed to give an advantage to students with excellent school grades actually harms them. The reason is that the three-step process employed by the clearinghouse is a complicated mechanism in which many students fail to grasp the strategic aspects involved. The mechanism is based on quotas and consists of three procedures that are administered sequentially, one for each quota. Using the complete data set of the central clearinghouse, we show that the matching can be improved for around 20% of the excellent students while making a relatively small percentage of all other students worse off.
Department of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Discussion Papers. 01/2008;
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ABSTRACT: I denne rapporten analyserer vi avkastningsm�nsteret p� Oslo B�rs over perioden 1980 - 2006. Form�let med rapporten er � analysere drivkreftene bak kursutviklingen i det norske aksjemarkedet. Et viktig siktem�l med analysen er dessuten � unders�ke i hvilken grad hovedresultatene fra tilsvarende analyser av andre lands aksjemarkeder ogs� gjelder for det norske markedet.
Norges Bank, Working Paper. 01/2007;
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ABSTRACT: Matching university places to students is not as clear cut or as straightforward as it ought to be. By investigating the matching algorithm used by the German central clearinghouse for university admissions in medicine and related subjects, we show that a procedure designed to give an advantage to students with excellent school grades actually harms them. The reason is that the three-step process employed by the clearinghouse is a complicated mechanism in which many students fail to grasp the strategic aspects involved. The mechanism is based on quotas and consists of three procedures that are administered sequentially, one for each quota. Using the complete data set of the central clearinghouse, we show that the matching can be improved for around 20% of the excellent students while making a relatively small percentage of all other students worse off.
Norges Bank, Working Paper. 01/2007;
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ABSTRACT: Is the effect of liquidity risk on asset prices sensitive to our choice of liquidity proxy? In addressing this fundamental question, we achieve two main results. First, when we estimate factor models on a broad range of liquidity measures we uncover a profound distinction between trade and order based liquidity. Second, although the order based factor provides a better signal of available liquidity, we find that only the factor related to information risk explains expected returns both in a theoretical liquidity-CAPM model and in a linear pricing framework. Our results suggest a surprising fragility of liquidity-based asset pricing.
09/2006;
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ABSTRACT: This paper provides an examination of the ownership structure in Norwegian firms that announced repurchase plans during the period 1999 through 2001, as well as for groups of these firms conditional on whether they actually executed repurchases or not. By using detailed information on various ownership variables that can be related to corporate governance mechanisms, the paper also examines whether the propensity for firms to announce a repurchase program depends on the ownership composition. Some interesting patterns are found which are consistent with models where firms with potentially the highest agency problems use repurchases to mitigate agency costs. However, a high insider ownership in these firms may also suggest that asymmetric information, shareholder expropriation and entrenchment may also be motivations for why firms repurchase shares.
05/2004;
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ABSTRACT: We examine the volume-volatility relation using detailed data from a limit order driven equity market. Estimates of the intraday slope of the demand and supply schedules of the order book are found to capture regularities in spreads, trade size and submission strategies which are believed to be related to asymmetric information. On a daily level, the order book slope should also captures differences in dispersion of beliefs about stock values. The relationship between our daily slope measure and the contemporaneous volatility across companies and time supports models where strategic trading and dispersion of beliefs increase both volume and volatility.
11/2003;
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Journal of Banking & Finance. 02/2003; 27(9):1779-1817.
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ABSTRACT: Using unique data, we address the issue of price formation in a limit order market. A standard volume–volatility relation is documented with the number of trades acting as the important component of volume. The main contribution of the paper is to identify strong evidence that volume, volatility, and the volume–volatility relation are negatively related to the order book slope. These results are robust to the inclusion of several liquidity measures. A significant empirical relationship between the order book slope and the coefficient of variation in earnings forecasts by financial analysts suggests that the slope is proxying for disagreement among investors. Hence, our results support models where investor heterogeneity intensifies the volume–volatility relation.
Journal of Financial Markets.
