Effects of electronic trading on the Hang Seng Index futures market

This investigation of the switch from open-outcry trading to electronic trading on the Hang Seng Index (HSI) futures contract reveals that the bid–ask spread narrows and the futures price plays more of a role in information transmission. Factors, such as anonymity in trading and fast order execution in electronic trading, attract informed traders to the futures market, enhancing the information flow. Our results provide support for the worldwide trend of transforming open-outcry markets into electronic trading platforms.     

Randomized double auctions: gains from trade,trader roles,and price discovery

Experimental double-auction commodity markets are known to exhibit robust convergence to competitive equilibria under stable or cyclical supply and demand conditions, but little is known about their performance in truly random environments. We provide a comprehensive study of double auctions in a stochastic setting where the equilibrium prices, trading volumes and gains from trade are highly variable across periods, and with commodity traders who may buy or sell their goods depending on market conditions and their individual outcomes. We find that performance in this stochastic environment is sensitive to underlying market conditions. Efficiency is higher and convergence to the competitive equilibrium stronger when the potential gains from trade are high and when the equilibrium spans a wide range of quantities, implying a large number of marginal trades. Speculative re-trading is prevalent, especially among those who have little to gain under equilibrium pricing. Those with the largest expected gains typically earn far less than predicted, while those with little or no predicted earnings gain modestly from speculation, leading to some redistribution of gains from high to low expected earners. Excessive trading volumes are associated with negative efficiencies in markets with low gains from trade, but not in the high-gains markets, where zero-sum trading and re-trading appear to enforce efficiency and near-equilibrium pricing. Buyers earn more relative to their competitive equilibrium benchmark than sellers do. Introducing trader specialization leads to fewer trading errors and higher market efficiency, but it does not eliminate zero-sum trading and re-trading.

     

Price discovery and intermediation in linked emissions trading markets: A laboratory study

Many new and proposed emissions trading systems involve multiple countries and regions. The introduction of interregional trading raises questions about how flexible state- or national-level authorities should be in allowing individual firms to trade with firms or authorities in other states or countries. This paper uses laboratory methods to evaluate the efficiency and pricing performance of linking trading across regions at the firm-to-firm level. In one treatment, individual firms trade directly with firms or authorities in other regions. We compare performance in this treatment to an intergovernmental trading treatment, where emissions trading is restricted to occur only between intermediaries. A baseline treatment of autarky, where firms only trade with other firms in their country or region, provides a benchmark to assess the efficiency benefits of allowing linking. Although efficiency and price discovery are both improved by allowing intermediation in linked permit markets, we find that further gains can be realized through direct firm to firm trading. Buyers in high cost regions and sellers in low cost regions benefit the greatest from linking.     

Market microstructure and security pricing in the warsaw market

The speed with which information is impounded in security prices is evaluated with respect to several market microstructure variables in the context of a dynamic, rapidly-changing market, the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The dynamic nature of this market allows for predictions concerning pricing efficiency in more mature markets as they merge or expand their number of offerings. The results indicate that the performance of the Warsaw Exchange compares favorably with that of the average security traded on the NASDAQ. To the extent that recent mergers of several exchanges have had the effect of engaging more market participants and enhancing trading opportunities through expanded hours, trading efficiency has been positively affected. There is also weaker support for the view that consolidating securities on fewer exchanges will improve informational efficiency as well.     

Inducing liquidity in thin financial markets through combined-value trading mechanisms

Asset pricing theory hypothesizes that investors are only interested in portfolios; individual securities are evaluated only in terms of their contribution to portfolio risk and return. Yet, standard financial market design is that of parallel, unconnected markets, whereby investors cannot submit orders in one market conditional on events in others. When markets are thin, this exposes them to substantial execution risk. Fear of ending up with unbalanced portfolios after trading may even keep investors from submitting orders, further eroding liquidity and the ability of markets to equilibrate. The suggested solution is a portfolio trading mechanism referred to as combined-value trading (CVT). Investors are allowed to submit orders for packages of securities and the system matches trades and computes prices by optimally combining portfolio orders in an open book. We study the performance of the CVT mechanism experimentally and compare it to the performance of parallel, unconnected double auctions in experiments with similar parametrization and either a similar number of subjects or substantially thicker markets. We present evidence that our portfolio trading mechanism facilitates equilibration to the extent that the thicker markets do. Inspection of order submission and trade activity reveals that subjects manage to exploit the direct linkages between markets enabled by the CVT system.     

TO REGULATE OR TO DEREGULATE? THE ROLE OF DOWNSTREAM COMPETITION IN UPSTREAM MONOPOLY VERTICALLY LINKED MARKETS

This paper attempts to cast light to the effect of monopoly regulation in Cournot markets compared to its effect in Bertrand markets. To this purpose, we use a simple model of a vertically linked market, where an upstream regulated natural monopoly is trading via two‐part tariff contracts with a downstream duopoly. Combining our results to those of the existing literature on deregulated markets, we argue that when the downstream competition is in prices, efficiency dictates regulating the monopoly with a marginal cost based pricing scheme. However, this type of regulation leads to significant welfare loss, when the downstream market is characterized by Cournot competition.     

市场分割下中国股市反馈交易实证研究——来自A股、B股和H股市场的经验证据

文章在行为资本资产定价模型(BCAPM)的基础上,通过借鉴Watanabe(2002)的方法,建立了GJR-GARCHM(1,1)-M模型,充分考虑中国股票市场处于分割状态的现状,使用基本覆盖A股、B股和H股市场全部交易历史的市场指数日收盘价数据,对A股、B股和H股市场的反馈交易行为进行研究和比较,结果显示:A股和B股市场都存在显著的正反馈交易效应,反馈交易行为主要取决于波动率水平和市场涨跌两个因素;与成熟股票市场类似,H股和红筹股市场的正反馈交易行为不显著;A股市场的反馈交易行为受市场涨跌因素影响更大,而B股市场的反馈交易行为主要由波动率水平决定;深市比沪市更容易出现正反馈交易者主导市场的现象。文章的研究不仅对行为资本资产定价理论的成立提供了经验性证据,而且对投资经理的实践操作和政策制定者的监管调控都具有一定的参考价值。     

How Low Can It Go? Analysing the Political Economy of Carbon Market Design and Low Carbon Prices

Despite the ascendency of carbon pricing as a key regulatory strategy for governing anthropogenic climate change, insufficient attention has been paid to the issue of price discovery in emission trading schemes, now the dominant form of carbon pricing globally. By analysing the political economy of carbon market design, this paper highlights a number of design features that are instrumental in depressing carbon prices across the world’s emission trading schemes, keeping them well below those considered necessary to spur deep emission reductions in order to avoid catastrophic global warming. In doing so, it advances critiques of carbon trading by illuminating the extent to which carbon markets manifest as expressions of specific power relations rooted in the political economy of advanced capitalism, with low prices ensuring minimal disruption to business as usual.     

异质预期、噪声交易与价格波动

自20世纪80年代开始迅速发展起来的行为金融理论认为,作为具有丰富心理活动的真实的人,金融市场中的投资者普遍存在各种认知偏差、情绪偏差和意志偏差,从而导致了他们的投资决策偏差和金融资产的定价偏差,投资者的噪声交易能够对资产价格产生重要影响。本文基于噪声交易模型的框架构建了一个包含理性套利者、信息挖掘者和动量交易者这三类异质投资者在内的噪声交易理论分析模型,在模型中引入了一系列与投资者行为特征相对应的重要行为参数,然后推导出由这三类异质投资者共同决定的风险资产均衡价格,最后通过灵敏度分析来综合讨论这三类异质投资者的一些重要行为参数对均衡价格的影响。结果表明,理性套利者确实能够起到稳定市场的作用,但是当噪声交易者在市场中的比例较大时,资产价格会较大程度地偏离其基本价值。     

THE FOUNDATION OF MARKET QUALITY ECONOMICS*

This study is based on my observation that high quality markets are indispensable for the healthy growth of a modern economy. Many problems surrounding markets are attributable to the lack of high quality markets. An industrial revolution creates extremely vibrant but unhealthy markets. This study introduces a concept of fairness in dealing and pricing (competitive fairness), which differs from efficiency, and defines market quality as a measure for the efficiency of allocation and the fairness of dealing and pricing. This study shows that competitive fairness is achieved by several market mechanisms that I constructed in my previous work.     

Big Data Algorithmic Trading Systems Based on Investors’ Mood

Traditional automated trading systems use rules and filters based on Chartism to send orders to the market, aiming to beat the market and obtain positive returns in bullish or bearish contexts. However, these systems do not consider the investors’ mood that many studies have demonstrated its effects over the evolution of financial markets. The authors describe 2 "big data" algorithmic trading systems over Ibex 35 future. These systems send orders to the market to open long or short positions, based on an artificial intelligence model that uses investors’ mood. To measure the investors' mood, the authors use semantic analysis algorithms that qualify as good, bad, or neutral any communication related to Ibex 35 made on social media (Twitter) or news media. After 1.5 years of research, conclusions are: First, the authors observe positive returns, demonstrating that investors’ mood has predictive capacity on the evolution of the Ibex 35. Second, these systems have beaten the Ibex 35 index, showing the imperfect efficiency of the financial markets. Third, big data algorithmic trading systems numbers are better in Sharpe ratio, success rate, and profit factor than traditional trading systems on the Ibex 35, listed in the Trading Motion platform.     

Multinational taxation and international emissions trading

Many studies have shown that the activities of multinational corporations are quite sensitive to differences in income tax rates across countries. In this paper I explore the interaction between multinational taxation and abatement activities under an international emissions permit trading scheme. Four types of plans are considered: (1) a single domestic permit system with international offsets; (2) separate national permit systems without trade; (3) separate national permit systems with limited offsets; and (4) an international permit trading system. For each plan, I model the incentives for the multinational firm to choose abatement activities at home and abroad and to transfer emissions credits between parent and subsidiary. Limits on trading across countries restrict efficiency gains from abatement, as is well known. But if available offset opportunities are limited to actual abatement activities, those activities are also more susceptible to distortions from incentives to shift taxable income. Transfer-pricing rules can limit but not always eliminate these distortions. In a system of unlimited international trading, abatement is efficiently allocated across countries, but tax shifting can still be achieved through intra-firm transfer pricing. From the basis of efficiency for both environmental and tax policies, the best design is an international permit trading system with transparent, enforceable transfer-pricing rules.     

Portfolio choice and pricing in illiquid markets

This paper studies portfolio choice and pricing in markets in which immediate trading may be impossible. It departs from the literature by removing restrictions on asset holdings, and finds that optimal positions depend significantly and naturally on liquidity: When expected future liquidity is high, agents take more extreme positions, given that they do not have to hold those positions for long when they become undesirable. Consequently, larger trades should be observed in markets with more frequent trading. Liquidity need not affect the price significantly, however, because liquidity has offsetting impacts on different agents' demands. This result highlights the importance of unrestricted portfolio choice. The paper draws parallels with the transaction-cost literature and clarifies the relationship between the price level and the realized trading frequency in this literature.     

CHANGES IN WATER ALLOCATION MECHANISMS FOR CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE

Existing institutions allocating water in California reflect prior appropriation water rights established when water was abundant. These allocation rules queue users and do not encourage water conservation. Increased water scarcity and growing valuation of water's environmental benefits are inducing a transition to water allocation mechanisms that increase water efficiency in agriculture. Transferable rights systems will lead to market-like water allocation, induce farmers to adopt water conservation technology, and may not face strong objection from senior water rights holders. One must weigh the efficiency gains associated with transition from water rights to water markets against the transaction costs associated with installing facilities that enable water exchange and trading .
Transition to water markets may preserve the agricultural sector's well-being while allowing the transfer of some water outside of agriculture—in particular, for environmental benefit. The cost of policies proposed to reduce agricultural water supply while encouraging water trading are inversely related to the extent of trading allowed. The more farmers trade water, the less costly reducing water supply is to agriculture. Policies reducing water supply to Central Valley Project contractors and allowing trading only among these contractors are much more expensive than are policies encouraging trading among all agricultural water users in California .     

Economic Significance of the Predictable Movements in Futures Returns

This paper tests whether the variation in expected futures returns reflects rational pricing in an efficient market or weak-form market inefficiency. The issue is investigated by looking at the abnormal performance of a trading rule based on available information. Once one allows for time-varying risk and time-varying risk premia, the investment strategy can be used consistently to generate abnormal returns in seven out of 26 markets. With relatively few exceptions therefore, the predictable movements in futures returns reflect weak-form market efficiency. The paper also shows that wrongly assuming constant expected returns may lead to incorrect inferences regarding market efficiency.
(J.E.L.: G14, G12).     

Does money impede convergence?

Inspired by Clower’s conjecture that the necessity of trading through money in monetised economies might hinder convergence to competitive equilibrium, and hence, for example, cause unemployment, we experimentally investigate behaviour in markets where trading has to be done through money. In order to evaluate the properties of these markets, we compare their behaviour to behaviour in markets without money, where money cannot intervene. As the trading mechanism might be a compounding factor, we investigate two kinds of market mechanism: the double auction, where bids, asks and trades take place in continuous time throughout a trading period; and the clearing house, where bids and asks are placed once in a trading period, and which are then cleared by an aggregating device. We thus have four treatments, the pairwise combinations of non-monetised/monetised trading with double auction/clearing house. We find that: convergence is faster under non-monetised trading, implying that the necessity of using money to facilitate trade hinders convergence; that monetised trading is noisier than non-monetised trading; and that the volume of trade and realised surpluses are higher with the double auction than the clearing house. As far as efficiency is concerned, monetised trading lowers both informational and allocational efficiency, and while the double auction outperforms the clearing house in terms of allocational efficiency, the clearing house is marginally better than the double auction in terms of informational efficiency when trade is through money. Crucially we confirm the conjecture that inspired these experiments: that the necessity to use money in trading hinders convergence to competitive equilibrium, lowers realised trades and surpluses, and hence may cause unemployment.     

卖空机制、股价信息含量与暴跌风险--基于融资融券交易的经验证据

文章利用我国逐步推出融资融券交易的自然实验机会,运用双重差分的研究设计,考察了卖空机制对股价反映负面消息效率的影响。文章以2007-2012年的数据为样本研究发现：相对于非标的股票,融资融券标的股票在成为标的之后,其股价对市场的向下波动及时做出了调整,使得股价对市场正负向波动反应之间的不对称性显著降低,表明标的股票更加及时和充分地吸收了有关公司价值的负面信息;同时,相对于非标的股票,融资融券标的标的股票在成为标的之后,其股价暴跌风险显著降低。文章结果表明,我国股市推出融资融券交易后,卖空机制提高了市场对标的股票负面消息的定价效率。     

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.     

中国碳交易二级市场有效性研究

选取北京、上海、广东、湖北碳交易市场自成立至2017年3月31日的收盘价数据,通过对日收益序列数据的分析,运用一阶自回归过程调整日收益序列以消除淡薄交易市场效应,之后综合运用检验性逐渐增强的4个方差比检验,判断4个碳交易市场的弱式有效性。研究结果表明：①国内碳交易市场属于淡薄交易市场;②市场中的价格信息堆积,信息透明度较差;③碳交易市场投资风险较大;④碳配额持有期不同,市场有效性具有差异,且具有阶段性特点;⑤北京碳交易二级市场属于弱式无效市场,上海、广东碳交易市场虽属于弱式无效市场,但随着碳额持有期增加,市场的弱式有效不断加强,湖北碳交易已经达到了弱式有效水平。最后,基于研究结论对如何加强中国碳交易二级市场有效性提出4点建议。     

Intraday trade in dealership markets

We develop and test a structural asymmetric information transaction model to characterize the price impact of information when markets are thin. Since orders are accepted individually, the model allows for transaction costs and brokerage fees. Equilibrium demands mixed entry strategies on the part of potentially informed traders. Estimation of the structural parameters is performed using a maximum likelihood procedure on NYSE data. The structural model is rejected primarily because the nonlinear restrictions do not allow for sufficient correlation between price movements and pricing errors. This leads to unreasonably low estimates of the probability of informed trade relative to an unrestricted alternative. The price impact of information is found to be positive and significant, but economically small. This is because although the amount of private information is substantial, the quality of the information signals is poor, particularly in the middle of the trading day. Informed agents do not trade small quantities, which suggests that their ability to divide orders is limited by transaction costs.