The Price of Options Illiquidity

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of illiquidity on the value of currency options. We use a unique dataset that allows us to explore this issue in special circumstances where options are issued by a central bank and are not traded prior to maturity. The value of these options is compared to similar options traded on the exchange. We find that the nontradable options are priced about 21 percent less than the exchange-traded options. This gap cannot be arbitraged away due to transactions costs and the risk that the exchange rate will change during the bidding process.     

企业价值评估中股权缺乏流通性减值折扣研究

股权缺乏流通性对其本身价值有减值影响这一结论已被一些国外著名研究结论所证实.在国内,目前尚没有这方面的研究理论公开发表.作者通过介绍1999年以来对我国法人股的交易案例的研究,证实缺少流通性对股权有减值影响这一结论在我国同样适用.文中还给出了作者在业务实践经验基础上总结出的估算缺少流通性折扣率的初步估算思路和方法.     

The Illiquidity of Corporate Bonds

This paper examines the illiquidity of corporate bonds and its asset‐pricing implications. Using transactions data from 2003 to 2009, we show that the illiquidity in corporate bonds is substantial, significantly greater than what can be explained by bid–ask spreads. We establish a strong link between bond illiquidity and bond prices. In aggregate, changes in market‐level illiquidity explain a substantial part of the time variation in yield spreads of high‐rated (AAA through A) bonds, overshadowing the credit risk component. In the cross‐section, the bond‐level illiquidity measure explains individual bond yield spreads with large economic significance.     

Illiquidity Premium in the MILA

This article analyzes the illiquidity premium in the MILA. Using seven proxies for illiquidity, we find a positive and significant illiquidity premium for our sample. A microstructure bias-free portfolio weighting based on past returns is critical in our finding of an illiquidity premium, which is robust to several methodological changes in our portfolio simulations. We also document that the premium is present only in small and high book-to-market stocks. Nonetheless, when we control for size and distress effects, the difference and significance in risk-adjusted returns between portfolios of high and low illiquidity stocks remains.     

Asset Pricing and the Illiquidity Premium

In this paper, we examine the asset‐pricing role of liquidity (as proxied by share turnover) in the context of the Fama and French (1993) three‐factor model. Our analysis employs monthly Australian data, covering the sample period from 1990 to 1998. The key finding of our research is that the main test is unable to reject the test of over‐identifying restrictions, thus supporting the overall favorability of the liquidity‐augmented Fama–French model. In addition, we find that the asset‐pricing performance of the liquidity factor is generally very robust to a wide range of sensitivity checks.     

Housing,Illiquidity, and Wealth

This article develops a model of asset allocation relevant for the representative consumer. Consumption is composed of two items: housing, and other goods and services. The representative household's balance sheet consists largely of a house and a mortgage. Its income statement is dominated by labor earnings, constraining cash expenditures. Housing-market behavior thus underlies intertemporal wealth and consumption allocation. With a housing-dominated portfolio and a maximizing plan, a plausible bound on the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution in consumption can be estimated for a typical household. The model takes account of idiosyncratic characteristics of housing returns and finance. Underwriting standards oblige borrowers to secure mortgage debt with a housing asset and with cash flow, usually from labor income. Access to the mortgage market depends on the loan-to-value ratio, or leverage and debt size, and the debt-coverage ratio, or cash solvency. If there are seasonals or predictable patterns in house returns, their magnitude is amplified for the typical liquidity-constrained household. Empirical results for the aggregate U.S. market confirm predictability and serial correlation in house capital gains. There are seasonals in housing returns. While there is no January effect, above-average returns are obtained during the summer months.     

Market Illiquidity and Conditional Equity Premium

We examine the time‐series relation between aggregate bid‐ask spreads and conditional equity premium. We document that average marketwide relative effective bid‐ask spreads forecast aggregate market returns only when controlling for average idiosyncratic variance. This control allows us to document the otherwise elusive relation between illiquidity and returns. The reason is that idiosyncratic variance correlates positively with spreads but has a negative effect on conditional equity premium, causing an omitted variable bias. Our results are robust to standard return predictors, alternative illiquidity measures, and out‐of‐sample tests. These findings are important because they provide strong support for the literature's conjecture that marketwide liquidity is an important asset pricing risk factor.     

The Illiquidity Discount of Life Insurance Investments

We incorporate an illiquid life insurance investment in the multi-period investment strategy of an investor with constant relative risk aversion and independent and identically distributed returns. In our setup, the liquid and the illiquid assets are risky and correlated and the illiquid investment cannot be rebalanced. We calculate the illiquidity discount as the difference in certainty equivalent rates of return between the optimal strategy with all assets being rebalanced in each period and the strategy with the illiquid investment. Calibrating our model to data of the German market we find a negative relationship between the level of risk aversion and the illiquidity discount when the investor does not rebalance at all. However, when the investor rebalances his liquid assets in each period to hedge against the illiquid investment the illiquidity discount becomes economically negligible.     

Capital Commitment and Illiquidity in Corporate Bonds

We study trading costs and dealer behavior in U.S. corporate bond markets from 2006 to 2016. Despite a temporary spike during the financial crisis, average trade execution costs have not increased notably over time. However, dealer capital commitment, turnover, block trade frequency, and average trade size decreased during the financial crisis and thereafter. These declines are attributable to bank‐affiliated dealers, as nonbank dealers have increased their market commitment. Our evidence indicates that liquidity provision in the corporate bond markets is evolving away from the commitment of bank‐affiliated dealer capital to absorb customer imbalances, and that postcrisis banking regulations likely contribute.     

汇率制度、流动性不足与货币危机

亚洲金融危机之后，金融危机再次成为理论上的热点问题。本文认为，内生于钉住汇率制度的道德风险是造成东南亚国家金融体系脆弱的主要原因，而脆弱的金融体系、大量的短期外汇负债又会在国际资本的冲击下最终导致钉住汇率制度的崩溃。虽然危机前，各国在维护钉住汇制度和保护国内金融体系这两个目标之间更趋向于后者，但是对于一个短期外债比例较大的东南亚国家来说，一旦货币危机发生会反过来对国内脆弱金融体系造成更大的冲击，并引发国内的银行危机。因此，当经常项目持续逆差主要是由短期外债的流入来融资的，为了避免双重危机（Twincrises)——货币危机和银行危机的爆发，就需要一场主动的、及时的汇率贬值来纠正。     

The Value of Control and the Costs of Illiquidity

We develop a search model of block trades that values the illiquidity of controlling stakes. The model considers several dimensions of illiquidity. First, following a liquidity shock, the controlling blockholder is forced to sell, possibly to a less efficient acquirer. Second, this sale may occur at a fire sale price. Third, absent a liquidity shock, a trade occurs only if a potential buyer arrives. Using a structural estimation approach and U.S. data on trades of controlling blocks of public corporations, we estimate the value of control, blockholders' marketability discount, and dispersed shareholders' illiquidity‐spillover discount.     

Illiquidity in the Interbank Payment System Following Wide‐Scale Disruptions

We show how the interbank payment system can become illiquid following wide‐scale disruptions. Two forces are at play in such disruptions—operational problems and changes in participants’ behavior. If the disruption is large enough, hits a key geographic area, or hits a “too‐big‐to‐fail” participant, then the smooth processing of payments can break down, and central bank intervention might be required to reestablish the socially efficient equilibrium. The paper provides a theoretical framework to analyze the effects of events such as the September 11 attack. In addition, the model can be reinterpreted to analyze shocks to fundamentals that affect the parameters of the intraday liquidity management game. We demonstrate this by showing how processing behavior changed in response to heightened credit risk at the time of the Lehman Brothers failure.     

Illiquidity shocks and the comovement between stocks: New evidence using smooth transition

This paper extends the smooth transition conditional correlation model by studying for the first time the impact that illiquidity shocks have on stock market return comovement. We show that firms that experience shocks that increase illiquidity are less liquid than firms that experience shocks that decrease illiquidity. Shocks that increase illiquidity have no statistical impact on comovement. However, shocks that reduce illiquidity lead to a fall in comovement, a pattern that becomes stronger as the illiquidity of the firm increases. This discovery is consistent with increased transparency and an improvement in price efficiency. We find that a small number of firms experience a double illiquidity shock. For these firms, at the first shock, a rise in illiquidity reduces comovement while a fall in illiquidity raises comovement. The second shock partly reverses these changes as a rise in illiquidity is associated with a rise in comovement and a fall in illiquidity is associated with a fall in comovement. These results have important implications for portfolio construction and also for the measurement and evolution of market beta and the cost of capital as it suggests that investors can achieve higher returns for the same amount of market risk because of the greater diversification benefits that exist. We also find that illiquidity, friction, firm size and the pre-shock correlation are all associated with the magnitude of the correlation change.     

Illiquidity and its discontents: Trading delays and foreclosures in the housing market

The macroeconomic effects of housing illiquidity are analyzed using a novel directed search model of housing with long-term debt and default. Debt overhang emerges when highly leveraged sellers are forced to post high prices that produce long selling delays. These delays increase foreclosures, raise default premia, and curtail credit. Cheaper credit fuels temporarily higher house prices, faster sales, and fewer foreclosures, but the borrowing surge facilitates future debt overhang and default. More stringent foreclosure punishments also expand credit and, therefore, either generate higher foreclosures or more debt overhang. Leverage caps avoid this conundrum but reduce welfare by restricting borrowing.     

公司债的非流动性与风险溢价——基于中国的实证研究

本文基于四种非流动性测度,考察了公司债层面和市场层面影响中国公司债非流动性的因素,讨论了公司债非流动性、权益波动率、印花税调整等因素对公司债风险溢价的影响。研究发现,在控制了信用评级和发行人权益波动率后,在截面上只有Amihud(2002)非流动性测度对公司债风险溢价有正的显著影响。此外,公司债发行人权益波动率和2008年的两次印花税调整对公司债风险溢价有正的稳健显著影响。     

Conflicts of Interest and Market Illiquidity in Bankruptcy Auctions: Theory and Tests

I develop and estimate a model of cash auction bankruptcy using data on 205 Swedish firms. The results challenge arguments that cash auctions, as compared to reorganizations, are immune to conflicts of interest between claimholders but lead to inefficient liquidations. I show that a sale of the assets back to incumbent management is a common bankruptcy outcome. Sale-backs are more likely when they favor the bank at the expense of other creditors. On the other hand, inefficient liquidations are frequently avoided through sale-backs when markets are illiquid, that is, when industry indebtedness is high and the firm has few nonspecific assets.     

Illiquidity,return and risk in G7 stock markets: Interdependencies and spillovers

Trading activity in G7 stock markets reflects not only the macroeconomic and financial impact of these G7 economies in international economic growth, but also their financial interdependence. While this nexus of major stock markets has been explored in terms of volatility and return spillovers, there has been no combined analysis of return, volatility and illiquidity spillovers. We study illiquidity spillovers because they are transmissions of trading activity and, thereof, transmissions of information and market sentiment. We find that the dynamics of international stock markets are characterized by persistent illiquidity and also that illiquidity shocks are significantly correlated across markets. Furthermore, we discover Granger causal associations between risk, return and illiquidity across G7 stock market and also within each stock market. Our findings bear significance for the regulation of international financial markets and also for international portfolio diversification.     

The Effect of Market Segmentation and Illiquidity on Asset Prices: Evidence from Exchange Listings

This article documents the effect on share value of listing on the New York Stock Exchange and reports the results of a joint test of Merton's (1987) investor recognition factor and Amihud and Mendelson's (1986) liquidity factor as explanations of the change in share value. We find that during the 1980s stocks earned abnormal returns of 5 percent in response to the listing announcement and that listing is associated with an increase in the number of shareholders and a reduction in bid-ask spreads. Cross-sectional regressions provide support for both investor recognition and liquidity as sources of value from exchange listing.     

Illiquidity Risk in Non-Listed Funds: Evidence from REIT Fund Exits and Redemption Suspensions

Managerial incentives are skewed in non-listed funds under finite horizons. Compensation structures are only indirectly related to shareholder wealth maximization when share prices are unobservable. Liquidity options for investors are limited in the absence of an exchange listing. Using a hand-collected database for public non-listed REITs, an empirical sequence considers the impact of management compensation contracts on equity fundraising and success in capital deployment. Evidence is provided that high asset management fees and high acquisition fees diminish managerial success at generating revenue from invested capital. Successful revenue flows are deterministic factor in the level of distributions paid and the likelihood of achieving a fund exit. Closing the gate on share redemption plans is synchronized with the slowdown in new equity flows. Retail investors are insensitive to maligned compensation structures that heighten illiquidity risk, even when observable in the prospectus.