Infinite horizon CAPM equilibrium

Summary. This paper derives the equilibrium of an infinite-horizon discrete-time CAPM economy in which agents have discounted expected quadratic utility functions. We show that there is an income stream obtainable by trading on the financial markets which best approximates perfect consumption smoothing (called the {\it least variable income stream} or LVI) such that the equilibrium consumption of each agent is some multiple of the LVI and some share of aggregate output. The welfare of agents is a decreasing function of the lack of consumption smoothing achievable, measured by the distance of the LVI from the perpetuity of one unit of income for ever. If in addition the economy has a Markov structure, the LVI, and hence the equilibrium, can be calculated by dynamic programming. When the model is calibrated to US data a striking prediction emerges: the quasi-irrelevance of the bond market. Infinitely-lived agents achieve almost all their desired consumption smoothing by applying carryover strategies to equity, the proportion of agents' portfolios in bonds rarely exceeding 3%.     

Water quality trading with asymmetric information,uncertainty and transaction costs: A stochastic agent-based simulation

We examine the efficiency of emissions trading in bilateral and clearinghouse markets with heterogeneous, boundedly rational agents making decisions under imperfect and asymmetric information, and transaction costs. Results are derived using a stochastic agent-based simulation model of agents’ decision-making and interactions. Trading rules, market structures, and agent information structures are selected to represent emerging water quality trading programs. The analysis is designed to provide a strong test of the efficiency of trading occurring through the two market structures. The Differential Evolution algorithm is used to search for market trade strategies that perform well under multiple states of the world. Our findings suggest that trading under both bilateral and clearinghouse markets yields cost savings relatively to no trading. The clearinghouse is found to be more efficient than bilateral negotiations in coordinating point–nonpoint trading under uncertainty and transaction costs. However, the market under both structures is unlikely to achieve or even approximate least-cost pollution control allocations. Expectations of gains from water quality trading should, therefore, be tempered.     

Rock around the clock: An agent-based model of low- and high-frequency trading

We build an agent-based model to study how the interplay between low- and high-frequency trading affects asset price dynamics. Our main goal is to investigate whether high-frequency trading exacerbates market volatility and generates flash crashes. In the model, low-frequency agents adopt trading rules based on chronological time and can switch between fundamentalist and chartist strategies. By contrast, high-frequency traders activation is event-driven and depends on price fluctuations. High-frequency traders use directional strategies to exploit market information produced by low-frequency traders. Monte-Carlo simulations reveal that the model replicates the main stylized facts of financial markets. Furthermore, we find that the presence of high-frequency traders increases market volatility and plays a fundamental role in the generation of flash crashes. The emergence of flash crashes is explained by two salient characteristics of high-frequency traders, i.e., their ability to i. generate high bid-ask spreads and ii. synchronize on the sell side of the limit order book. Finally, we find that higher rates of order cancellation by high-frequency traders increase the incidence of flash crashes but reduce their duration.     

Performance of moving average trading strategies over varying stock market conditions: the Finnish evidence

This article examines the profitability of dual moving average crossover (DMAC) trading strategies in the Finnish stock market over the period 1996 to 2012. It contributes to the existing technical analysis literature by comparing for the first time the performance of DMAC trading portfolios of individual stocks to the performance of index trading strategies based on trading on an index that consists of the same stocks. The results show that their relative performance varies over time, whereas previous studies have documented outperformance of index trading strategies over trading strategies of stock portfolios. Moreover, the great majority of 3020 DMAC strategies examined in this article outperform the corresponding buy-and-hold (B and H) strategy for both trading targets (i.e., OMX Helsinki 25 index and individual stocks included in the index) in out-of-sample tests. In addition, the decomposition of the full-sample-period performance into separate bull- and bear-period performance shows clearly that the outperformance of DMAC strategies over B and H strategy is mostly attributable to their better performance during bearish periods.     

PRODUCE OR SPECULATE? ASSET BUBBLES,OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE,AND EFFICIENCY*

We study the effects of rational asset bubbles in an overlapping‐generations economy where asset trading requires specialized intermediaries and agents freely choose between working in the production or the financial sector. Frictions in the market for deposits create rents in the financial sector that affect agents’ occupational choices. When rents are large, the private gains associated with trading bubbles lead too many agents to become speculators, causing bubbles to lose their efficiency properties. Moreover, if speculation can be carried out by skilled labor only, then bubbles displace skilled workers away from the productive sector and raise income inequalities.     

Who trades quickly?

We examine differences among US equity market participants according to how quickly, on average, they execute their orders. When traders who execute faster buy (sell), market prices tend to rise (decline). Those who trade more quickly take liquidity more, use smaller trade sizes, transact more frequently, and spread their trading across more venues. Although faster traders are net liquidity demanders, they pay a lower cost to trade. Our results indicate that systematic differences exist across market participants according to how fast they transact, and those with a shorter time to execution exhibit traits that are consistent with information-based trading.     

Timing under individual evolutionary learning in a continuous double auction

The moment of order submission plays an important role for the trading outcome in a Continuous Double Auction; submitting an offer at the beginning of the trading period may yield a lower profit, as the trade is likely to be settled at the own offered price, whereas late offers result in a lower probability of trading. This timing problem makes the order submission strategy more difficult. We extend the behavioral model of Individual Evolutionary Learning to incorporate the timing problem and study the limiting distribution of submission moments and the resulting offer function that maps submission moments to offers. We find that traders submit different offers at different submission moments the distribution of which uni-modal with a peak moving from late to early as the market size increases. This behavior exacerbates efficiency loss from learning. If traders evaluate profitability of their strategies over longer history, orders are submitted later with the same effect of market size.     

个人投资者交易行为研究——来自台湾股市的证据

本文基于台湾股市数据,主要研究个人投资者的交易行为。参照Kaniel et al.(2008)构建了个人投资者交易不平衡性指标─净交易,以反映投资者股票交易的强度。采用这种交易不平衡性指标来构建投资组合研究个人投资者的交易行为。首先研究个人投资者交易和股票的收益之间的动态关系从而分析投资者的交易策略,然后研究个人投资者净交易的收益预测能力从而分析个人投资者交易的信息含量。本文研究发现:台湾股票市场的个人投资者采用负反馈的交易策略,并且个人投资者在交易中表现出很强的处置效应;个人投资者在交易中的信息含量不足;个人投资者交易中的盈利主要来自两个方面:过度反应和价格冲击。文章最后给出政策建议。     

Exchange rate fluctuations in an economy with noise traders

This paper analyzes the stability of the exchange rate in an economy with noise traders. Noise trading is restricted to agents investing in the domestic stock market. The agents pricing foreign exchange hold rational expectations. Monetary policy is affected by the behavior of investors in the domestic stock market and in turn affects fundamental stock evaluations as well as noise trading. We show that when monetary policy affects only fundamentalists bifurcation appears in the exchange rate. When monetary policy also affects noise trading, fixing the exchange rate or switching to a low money growth rule imply stock bubbles converge to zero.     

Futures Contracts in Water Leasing: An Experimental Analysis Using Basin Characteristics of the Rio Grande,NM

Providing for increased water demands during periods of persistent drought and climatic variability may require water managers, users and planners to think differently about how water resources are allocated. A water marketing institution that allows water rights holders to reallocate water on a temporary basis could overcome these challenges with minimal conflict. In this paper, a water marketing institution that allows for the temporary reallocation of water rights in a spot and futures market is investigated. The results provide insight into three key questions: (1) how does trading impact the physical system, (2) does the value of water differ by trading agents, (3) how is economic welfare redistributed as a result of trading? Results of experimental treatments display minor impacts to the physical system, that prices differ across the different type of trading agents and the addition of a futures market has the ability to decrease market prices while increasing economic welfare as a futures market allows users to hedge against future water uncertainty.     

污染物减排政策效果比较——基于经济学视角

我国政府已经把减少污染物排放作为约束性指标纳入到国家中长期发展战略之中,采取有效的污染物减排政策是中国缓解环境压力、实现经济社会可持续发展的重要手段.排污权交易制度是在总量管制的情况下,通过污染物排放权的分配,最终实现该区域总的排污量削减.本文从经济学的视角,研究了排污权交易的实施基础,并与行政强制性减排以及环境税减排进行了效率比较,结果表明排污权交易比单纯的行政强制性排污和环境税约束具有更高的市场效率以及灵活性,同时并不会降低整个社会的污染物排放效果.此外,从市场势力的影响、市场信息的影响、交易规则的影响等方面讨论了影响排污权交易市场效率的因素,对我国排污权交易市场的发展提出了相应的建议,为排污权交易市场的稳定运行提供了理论参考.     

The anatomy of returns from moving average trading rules in the Russian stock market

This paper examines the profitability of index trading strategies that are based on dual moving average crossover (DMAC) rules in the Russian stock market over the 2003–2012 period. It contributes to the existing technical analysis (TA) literature by comparing for the first time in emerging markets the relative performance of individual stocks’ trading portfolios with that of trading strategies for the index that consists of the same stocks (i.e., the most liquid stocks of the Moscow Exchange). The results show that the best trading strategies of the in-sample period can outperform buy-and-hold strategy during the subsequent out-of-sample period, although with low statistical significance. In addition, we document the benefits of using DMAC combinations that are much longer than those employed in previous TA literature. Moreover, the decomposition of the full-sample-period performance into separate bull- and bear-period performances shows that the outperformance of the best past index trading strategies over is mostly attributable to the fact that they managed to stay mostly out of the stock market during a dramatic crash caused by the global financial crisis.     

Information asymmetry,cluster trading,and market efficiency: Evidence from the Chinese stock market

This study investigates the effect of asymmetry information and illiquidity related to cluster trading on information integration efficiency in the Chinese stock market. The results show that information asymmetry and illiquidity related to cluster trading both negatively affect market efficiency in the Chinese stock market. While the effect of information asymmetry on market efficiency dominates in the informational period, the effect of illiquidity related to cluster trading dominates in other periods, when trading is less concentrated. Noise trading has a positive effect on market efficiency by greatly reducing the illiquidity related to cluster trading; however, its effect on information asymmetry is not significant. Our results provide insight into investors’ trading strategies.     

随机需求下考虑排污权交易的制造商最优生产与定价联合决策研究

在考虑排污权交易的情况下,研究了具有价格依赖需求特征的排污制造商如何进行单周期生产和定价联合决策的问题。研究表明:制造商的最优生产量和最优定价存在且唯一;制造商的最大期望利润既是排污权交易一级市场排污权交易价格的减函数,也是二级市场排污权交易价格的减函数(当最优生产量大于排污上限时)或增函数(当最优生产量小于排污上限时);与不考虑排污权交易的情况相比,排污权交易二级市场的存在可以促进制造商进行减排投资、提高排污生产效率;由制造商决策对排污权交易政策的反应函数可知,排污权交易中的各种政策因素和市场因素都会对制造商的生产经营决策产生显著影响。     

Seller competition by mechanism design

This paper analyzes a market game in which sellers offer trading mechanisms to buyers and buyers decide which seller to go to depending on the trading mechanisms offered. In a (subgame perfect) equilibrium of this market, sellers hold auctions with an efficient reserve price but charge an entry fee. The entry fee depends on the number of buyers and sellers, the distribution of buyer valuations, and the buyer cost of entering the market. As the size of the market increases, the entry fee decreases and converges to zero in the limit. We study how the surplus of buyers and sellers depends on the number of agents on each side of the market in this decentralized trading environment.     

Intraday market effects in electronic soybean futures market during non-trading and trading hour announcements

This article investigates market reactions to major United States Department of Agriculture announcements during non-trading and trading hours in the soybean futures market using microstructure data. Following report release, volume increases and remains elevated for up to 15 to 20 minutes. The volume spikes for the non-trading releases relative to the trading releases, but are identical after the first reaction. Report releases during non-trading hours cause a large spike in volatility at the onset of trading which subsides quickly. In contrast, releases during trading hours result in a smaller volatility spike, which extends for 5–6 min at a higher magnitude. Adjusting volatility by normal trading volatility indicates that volatility in trading hour release is higher in both immediate response and persistence. Return correlations provide little evidence to support systematic under- or overreaction in prices regardless of when the report is released reflecting the efficiency of the market.     

Markets as communication systems

As the information relative to endowments, costs and preferences is dispersed among many agents, the quality of resource allocation depends on the ability of markets to communicate information inside the economic system. Because information is transferred through negotiation and transaction behaviors, the network of trading relations defines the channels through which it flows. In the present study, we use new computational tools to analyze the performance of two wholesale trade institutions widely used around the world: network trading and marketplace trading. Whilst network trading and marketplace trading disseminate far fewer bits of information than a perfectly transparent benchmark market, they often manage to generate an allocation of resources that is almost as good. In many cases, network trading proves more effective than marketplace trading (contrary to a common preconception). This surprising performance of network trading is linked to a form of indirect arbitrage induced by connections between networks. Implications for market design and public policy making are presented, along with prospects for further research.     

Long-run equity risk and dynamic trading strategies: a simulation exercise for the Italian stock market

The paper develops a simulation approach capable of reproducing the high frequency characteristics of Italian stock market prices, without assuming any specific form for their stochastic process. The approach is then used to verify the capability of dynamic trading strategies to protect against downside risk in the long run. Because a fully funded capitalized retirement system will develop in Italy in the near future, dynamic trading strategies might become a widely used tool among Italian portfolio managers to hedge long-run equity risk, especially in view of the poor risk –return trade off that the stock market has historically provided. Both option replicating strategies and constant proportion strategies are simulated. The impact of transaction costs, non stationary return variances, alternative portfolio rebalancing schemes and various implementation constraints on the strategies cost are examined. For the option replicating strategies,ex posteffective costs turn out to be close toex antetheoretical expected cost. The crucial element in the strategy appears the decisions about the length of the option strategy and the rule to reset the floor at the end of it. Constant proportion strategies are cheaper and easier to implement, but their effectiveness depends too on the way in which the floor is adjusted as a function of the stock price movements. Broadly speaking, the simulations confirm that dynamic strategies are capable of delivering what they are supposed to achieve. All types of strategies are relatively straightforward and can be used with an acceptable margin of uncertainty.     

Efficiency of continuous double auctions under individual evolutionary learning with full or limited information

In this paper we explore how specific aspects of market transparency and agents’ behavior affect the efficiency of the market outcome. In particular, we are interested whether learning behavior with and without information about actions of other participants improves market efficiency. We consider a simple market for a homogeneous good populated by buyers and sellers. The valuations of the buyers and the costs of the sellers are given exogenously. Agents are involved in consecutive trading sessions, which are organized as a continuous double auction with order book. Using Individual Evolutionary Learning agents submit price bids and offers, trying to learn the most profitable strategy by looking at their realized and counterfactual or “foregone” payoffs. We find that learning outcomes heavily depend on information treatments. Under full information about actions of others, agents’ orders tend to be similar, while under limited information agents tend to submit their valuations/costs. This behavioral outcome results in higher price volatility for the latter treatment. We also find that learning improves allocative efficiency when compared to outcomes with Zero-Intelligent traders.     

股权分置改革与IPO配置效率的实证研究

本文采用规范研究和实证研究相结合的方法,对股权分置改革对我国A股市场IPO效率的影响进行了深入的研究。本文发现,股权分置下新股供给限制、流通股的流动性溢价、二级市场价格控制,使得新股二级市场价格系统性偏离了发行公司的内在价值。对股权分置改革前后IPO样本的回归分析显示,股权分置改革前我国新股发行定价反映的公司内在价值信息相对有限,而股权分置改革后新股发行定价更加合理,因而股权分置改革有效地提高了IPO配置效率。