The Effects of Subject Pool and Design Experience on Rationality in Experimental Asset Markets

Empirical evidence suggests that prices do not always reflect fundamental values and individual behavior is often inconsistent with rational expectations theory. We report the results of fourteen experimental asset markets designed to examine whether the interactive effect of subject pool and design experience (i.e., previous experience in a market under identical conditions) tempers price bubbles and improves forecasting ability. Our main findings are: 1) price run-ups are modest and dissipate quickly when traders are knowledgeable about financial markets and have participated in a previous market under identical conditions; 2) price bubbles moderate quickly when only a subset of traders are knowledgeable and experienced; 3) the heterogeneity of expectations about price changes is smaller in markets with knowledgeable and experienced traders, even if such traders only represent a subset of the market; and 4) individual forecasts of prices are not consistent with the predictions of the rational expectations model in any market, although absolute forecast errors are smaller for subjects who are knowledgeable of financial markets and for those subjects who have participated in a previous market. In sum, our findings suggest that markets populated by at least a subset of knowledgeable and experienced traders behave rationally, even though average individual behavior can be characterized as irrational.     

Price Limits, Information Acquisition, and Bid–ask Spreads: Theory and Evidence

A number of futures markets use price limits which, in effect, preclude trade from occurring at prices outside certain exogenous bounds. Noting that such markets are characterized by heterogeneously informed traders, whereas previous work on price limits assumes symmetrically informed traders, we examine the effects of price limits in a setting where market participants are asymmetrically informed. We find that imposing price limits generally lowers the quality of information acquired in equilibrium, but lowers bid–ask spreads as well. Thus, depending on the relative weights placed by society on liquidity versus price efficiency, there may exist a set of price limits that are most efficient in achieving a trade-off between liquidity and informational efficiency. We perform empirical tests of some implications of the model using cross-sectional data on price limits. We find that price limits are strongly negatively related to both price volatility and trading volume. Though other explanations for our empirical findings cannot be ruled out, these results are not inconsistent with the model's implication that price limits should be tighter for contracts which offer greater profit potential for informed traders.     

Stability and bifurcation in a simple heterogeneous asset pricing model

Stability and bifurcation analysis of deterministic systems has been widely used in modeling financial markets. We develop a simple pricing model with two types of rational traders, fundamentalists and chartists, in order to study well price behavior in financial markets, we use student t distribution to replace traditional normal distribution to describe fundamental price process. We study the stability and bifurcation of the underling deterministic system and use numerical simulation to study the dynamic of the stochastic system, including autocorrelations structures and high kurtosis of the returns. It is found that the fundamental price becomes stable (unstable) when the activities from both types of traders are balanced (unbalanced).     

International finance in general equilibrium

Our purpose in this paper is to unify international trade and finance in a single general equilibrium model. Our model is rich enough to include multiple commodities (including traded and nontraded goods), heterogeneous consumers in each country, multiple time periods, multiple credit markets, and multiple currencies. Yet our model is simple enough to be effectively computable. We explicitly calculate the financial and real effects of changes in tariffs, productivity, and preferences, as well as the effects of monetary and fiscal policy.We maintain agent optimization, rational expectations, and market clearing (i.e. perfect competition with flexible prices) throughout. But because of the important role money plays, and because of the heterogeneity of markets and agents, we find that fiscal and monetary policy both have real effects. The effects of policy on real income, long-term interest rates, and exchange rates are qualitatively identical to those suggested in Mundell-Fleming (without the small country hypothesis), although our equilibrating mechanisms are different. However, because the Mundell-Fleming model ignores expectations and relative price changes, our model predicts different effects on the flow of capital, the balance of trade, and real exchange rates in some circumstances.     

Does Transparency of Central Banks Produce Multiple Equilibria on Currency Markets?

A recent strand of literature shows that multiple equilibria in models of markets for pegged currencies vanish if there is slightly diverse information among traders; see Morris and Shin (2001). It is known that this approach works only if the common knowledge in the market is not too precise. This has led to the conclusion that central banks should try to avoid making their information common knowledge. We develop a model in which more transparency of the central bank implies better private information, because each trader utilises public information according to her own private information. Thus, transparency makes multiple equilibria less likely.     

Transaction costs and informational cascades in financial markets

We study the effect of transaction costs (e.g., a trading fee or a transaction tax, like the Tobin tax) on the aggregation of private information in financial markets. We implement a financial market with sequential trading and transaction costs in the laboratory. According to theory, eventually all traders neglect their private information and abstain from trading (i.e., a no-trade informational cascade occurs). We find that, in the experiment, informational no-trade cascades occur when theory predicts they should (i.e., when the trade imbalance is sufficiently high). At the same time, the proportion of subjects irrationally trading against their private information is smaller than in a financial market without transaction costs. As a result, the overall efficiency of the market is not significantly affected by the presence of transaction costs.     

国际货币的惯性及对人民币国际化的启示

随着人们对人民币国际化问题的普遍关注,货币的国际化成为国际金融领域的热点问题。利用货币竞争模型分析由于货币的网络外部性和转换成本的存在所造成的国际货币的惯性,从而解释世界上到底需要多少种国际货币、为什么在每个时期只能有一种货币可以成为真正意义上的国际货币、为什么一种货币想要取代已有的国际货币的过程都十分漫长等问题。对上述问题的解释启示我们在人民币国际化的过程中,要关注货币网络外部性和转换成本的影响,可以通过贸易逆差输出人民币和中国金融市场的发展来培育人民币的网络外部性。     

Information,trade and common knowledge

In any voluntary trading process, if agents have rational expectations, then it is common knowledge among them that the equilibrium trade is feasible and individually rational. This condition is used to show that when risk-averse traders begin at a Pareto optimal allocation (relative to their prior beliefs) and then receive private information (which disturbs the marginal conditions), they can still never agree to any non-null trade. On markets, information is revealed by price changes. An equilibrium with fully revealing price changes always exists, and even at other equilibria the information revealed by price changes “swamps” each trader's private information.     

Speculation and Tobin taxes: Why sand in the wheels can increase economic efficiency

The current paper develops the microeconomic case for a Tobin tax. It combines the noise-trader literature with the Tobin-tax-policy literature. Noise traders cause economic losses by inappropriately cashing out their investments. A Tobin tax can reduce such activity, thereby conferring a benefit on fundamentals investors. The paper identifies the conditions under which these gains would be largest and provides guidelines as to whether a tax is warranted. There is a trade-off because Tobin taxes discourage fundamentals investors from trading, and there are occasions when they would rationally choose to trade but do not because of the tax.     

Compensation schemes,liquidity provision,and asset prices: an experimental analysis

In an experimental setting in which investors can entrust their money to traders, we investigate how compensation schemes affect liquidity provision and asset prices, two outcomes that are important for financial stability. Compensation schemes can drive a wedge between how investors and traders value the asset. Limited liability makes traders value the asset more than investors. To limit losses, investors should thus restrict liquidity provision to force traders to trade at a lower price. By contrast, bonus caps make traders value the asset less than investors. This should encourage liquidity provision and increase prices. In contrast to these predictions, we find that under limited liability investors increase liquidity provision and asset price bubbles are larger. Bonus caps have no clear effect on liquidity provision and they fail to tame bubbles. Overall, giving traders skin in the game fosters financial stability.     

异质信念、投机均衡与农产品期货定价*

农产品期货市场套利并不充分,交易者也不是完全理性的。本文假设农产品期货市场有限套利、交易者异质信念并遵循“经验法则”预期,构建了农产品期货投机均衡定价模型,并认为集中竞价规则下产生的农产品期货价格是由交易者的预期决定的;前期期货价格水平、现货价格和前期期货价格的变动趋势、不同类型交易者的比例结构及其预期模式共同影响农产品期货价格的形成与波动;基本分析法交易者占主导地位的农产品期货市场具有更高的套期保值与价格发现效率。针对中国七种主要农产品期货的实证结果显示,农产品期货投机均衡定价模型对解释中国农产品期货价格的形成与波动是有效的。这意味着在期货行情系统中实时披露现货价格信息,培育和引导交易者运用基本分析法预测期货价格走势,有助于提升农产品期货市场的效率。     

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.     

Liquidity shocks: A new solution to the forward premium puzzle

The frequent empirical failure of uncovered interest rate parity raises a question that has not been definitively answered: why do predictable excess returns on currencies persist in competitive currency markets? Supported by data from nine major currencies for 1978:08–2019:09, I provide a novel resolution to this enduring forward premium puzzle by building on the financial economics literature that explores the economic implications of limited access to capital markets. A liquidity shock, or the urgent demand for liquidity by credit-constrained arbitragers liquidating bond holdings, causes losses from sudden drops in bond prices. Arbitragers require a liquidity premium to compensate for potential losses that vary directly with the interest rate. It is this liquidity premium that explains persistent excess returns on currencies. I argue for policies favoring a low interest rate environment and macroprudential controls that ease liquidity constraints to increase the efficiency of international capital markets by reducing the liquidity premium.     

Beyond associative democracy

This article proposes a cognitive and empirical approach, based on in-depth semi-structured elite interviews, to analyse the extent to which the dollar is becoming a negotiated international currency in the perception of financial elites in China, Brazil and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It shows that while the greenback is still the top currency in the system due to a lack of alternatives, its long term dominance is questioned because its economic pre-eminence and its political leadership are perceived to be fading. This in turn is stimulating financial elites in emerging markets to promote alternative regional monetary frameworks and the internationalisation of their own currencies. The article explores how financial elites in key dollar holding countries react to the US ‘exorbitant privilege’ of not facing disciplinary constraints in its economic policies. It then examines how the US has been able to misuse its central position in the system by delaying and deflecting adjustment costs upon others, and illustrates the disapproving response that this has provoked in emerging markets and Europe. Finally, it concentrates on Chinese proposals to renegotiate the status of the dollar in the system and why these have been hitherto rejected by the US.     

Liquidity Preference and Financial Intermediation

We examine the characteristics of optimal monetary policies in a general equilibrium model with incomplete markets. Markets are incomplete because of uninsured preference uncertainty, and because productive capital is traded infrequently. Rational individuals are willing to hold a liquid asset—"money"—at a premium. Monetary policy interacts with existing financial institutions to determine this premium, as well as the level of precautionary holdings. We show that inflation is expansionary, and that the optimal inflation rate is positive if there is no operative banking system (the Tobin effect). Otherwise, efficiency requires that money be undominated in its rate of return (the Friedman Rule).     

The “inflow-effect”—Trader inflow and price efficiency

We investigate the impact of cash and trader inflow on price efficiency in multi-period experimental asset markets. Implementing eight treatments with 672 subjects, we find that (i) the joint inflow of cash and traders triggers strong overvaluation and massive price run-ups (inflow-effect). Remarkably, the effect occurs in almost all of the 30 markets with joint cash and trader inflow and is very robust. The effect even prevails in markets with complete and symmetric fundamental information. We further show that (ii) in treatments with the joint inflow of cash and traders, prices crash to fundamentals towards maturity of the asset. The analysis of traders׳ beliefs reveals that (iii) despite fundamental values staying constant, beliefs about fundamentals co-move with upwardly trending prices. Finally, we report a speculative motive only among the optimists in treatments where we observe the inflow-effect.     

An Analysis of a Rules-based Approach to Disciplining Export Credits in Agriculture

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the comparative static effects of rules-based disciplines for government supported export credit arrangements. The arrangements provide traders in the country offering the guarantees more favourable borrowing conditions. This may provide an advantage relative to rival exporters since the supported trader may offer better financial terms to importers. Rules that discipline implicit interest rate subsidies are appropriate when an importing country does not face liquidity constraints when borrowing. However, these rules may not be appropriate with liquidity constraints because of the potential for additionality and benefits for all exporting countries. Rules on benchmarks for insurance premiums are always appropriate because insurance subsidies unambiguously have the potential to distort markets.     

The Holy Grail of Crypto Currencies: Ready to Replace Fiat Money?

Abstract:

This article suggests that current forms of crypto currencies will fail to complement or replace fiat money. We show that fixed-supply coins like bitcoin suffer from an inherently speculative and deflationary design and are not backed by a “We Owe You”. Stablecoins, i.e. coins that rely on flexible supply designs, are also not backed by a “We Owe You” and cannot achieve price stability because they build on outdated monetarist theories. Moreover, the algorithmically planned allocation of new coins, which is characteristic of stablecoins, is not market-based. As such, it is inferior to contemporary ways of money creation. Regarding price stability, we suggest that (crypto) monetary policy needs to overcome the illusionary dichotomy between the real and the financial circuit by accounting for systematic coordinated wage bargaining mechanisms to reflect that firms set prices according to cost-based pricing rules.     

Monetary policy and noise traders: A welfare analysis

This paper studies the choice of monetary policy regime in a small open economy with noise traders in forex markets. We focus on two simple rules: fixed exchange rates and inflation targeting. We contrast the above two rules against optimal policy with commitment under productivity shocks. In general, the presence of noise traders increases the desirability of a fixed exchange rate regime. We also evaluate the welfare impact of Tobin taxes in this milieu. These taxes help unambiguously in the absence of productivity shocks; their welfare impact under productivity shocks depends on the monetary regime in place and trade elasticity between domestic and foreign goods.     

Liquidity risk and financial competition: Implications for asset prices and monetary policy

This paper studies the implications of banking competition for capital markets and monetary policy. In particular, I develop a two-sector monetary growth model in which a group of agents is exposed to liquidity shocks and money is essential. Banks insure depositors against such risk and invest in the economy's assets. In this setting, I compare an economy with a perfectly competitive banking sector to an economy with a fully concentrated financial sector. Unlike previous work, banks can have market power in both deposits and capital markets. Compared to a perfectly competitive financial sector, I demonstrate that a monopolistic banking system can have substantial adverse consequences on capital formation, assets prices, and the degree of risk sharing. Furthermore, multiple steady-states can emerge and the economy becomes subject to poverty traps. More importantly, market power in financial markets may overturn the Tobin effect present under a perfectly competitive financial sector. This necessarily happens in economies with high degrees of liquidity risk and low levels of capital formation.