Strategic trading and learning about liquidity

Many practitioners point out that the speculative profits of institutional traders are eroded by the difficulty in gauging the price impact of their trades. In this paper, we develop a model of strategic trading where speculators face such a dilemma because of incomplete information about time-varying market liquidity. Unlike the competitive market makers that they trade against, informed traders do not know the distribution of liquidity (“noise”) trades. Instead, they have to learn about liquidity from past prices and trading volume. This learning implies that strategic trades and market statistics such as informational efficiency are path-dependent on past market outcomes. Our paper also has normative implications for practitioners.     

Money and exchange rates in the Grossman-Weiss-Rotemberg model

We analyze the impact of monetary policy on inflation, interest rates and exchange rates in a model with segmented asset markets developed by Grossman and Weiss (1983) and Rotemberg (1984, 1985). We find parameters for which real and nominal exchange rates in this model are (1) much more volatile than interest rates, inflation rates, and money growth rates, (2) highly correlated with each other, and (3) highly persistent. While this model fails to match the data in other important respects, it illustrates a potentially useful approach to modelling exchange rate behavior.     

Alternatives to blanket guarantees for containing a systemic crisis

This paper seeks to explain how policy actions undertaken at the outset of recent crises—particularly the issuance of extensive liquidity support and government guarantees—absorb off-budget fiscal resources and inappropriately constrain officials’ subsequent options for restructuring their country’s troubled financial and corporate sectors. Empirical evidence supports the commonsense view that the damage a crisis works on a country’s financial sector and on its real economy is lessened by taking market-mimicking actions that promptly estimate and allocate losses during the early stages of a crisis. The most important steps are to plan to call a timeout to separate hopelessly insolvent institutions from potentially viable ones and to provide haircuts, guarantees, and liquidity support in ways that protect taxpayers and avoid subsidizing insolvent institutions’ longshot gambles for resurrection.     

Measuring the liquidity part of volume

Based on the concept that the presence of liquidity frictions can increase the daily traded volume, we develop an extended version of the mixture of distribution hypothesis model (MDH) along the lines of Tauchen and Pitts (1983) to measure the liquidity portion of volume. Our approach relies on a structural definition of liquidity frictions arising from the theoretical framework of Grossman and Miller (1988), which explains how liquidity shocks affect the way in which information is incorporated into daily trading characteristics. In addition, we propose an econometric setup exploiting the volatility–volume relationship to filter the liquidity portion of volume and infer the presence of liquidity frictions using daily data. Finally, based on FTSE 100 stocks, we show that the extended MDH model proposed here outperforms that of Andersen (1996) and that the liquidity frictions are priced in the cross-section of stock returns.     

Do constraints created by economic growth targets benefit sustainable development? Evidence from China

An economic growth target is a declaration by policy authorities of commitment to that target and the corresponding allocation of resources. The constraints created by economic growth target are an important economic management method in China, which has helped China's economy to achieve remarkable achievements. However, it has also brought about serious environmental problems, threatening China's sustainable development. Using the data about economic growth targets in the work reports of 30 Chinese provincial governments from 2006 to 2017, this paper constructs several spatial measurement methods, such as the spatial Durbin model, to examine the constraints created by economic growth target's impacts on air pollution. The main conclusions are as follows. First, a significant “U-shaped” relationship exists between the constraints created by economic growth targets and air pollution. Second, the spatial Durbin model analysis revealed that PM_2.5 across China's provinces display significant positive spatial spillover effects and spatial agglomeration characteristics. Third, the direct, indirect, and total effects of constraints created by economic growth targets on air pollution are all statistically significant and depict a “U shape.” Finally, the constraints created by economic growth targets have an apparent threshold effect on air pollution, and the inhibiting effects increase with human capital and industrial restructuring. However, with the increase in foreign direct investments, constraints created by economic growth targets may increase air pollution. The conclusions of this paper are of great significance for improving the management of local government economic growth targets and sustainable development.     

Measuring systemic risk-adjusted liquidity (SRL)—A model approach

Little progress has been made so far in addressing—in a comprehensive way—the negative externalities caused by excessive maturity transformation and the implications for effective liquidity regulation of banks. The SRL model combines option pricing theory with market information and balance sheet data to generate probabilistic measure of systemic liquidity risk. It enhances price-based liquidity regulation by linking a bank’s maturity mismatch impacting the stability of its funding with those characteristics of other banks, subject to individual changes in risk profiles and common changes in market conditions impacting funding and market liquidity risk. This approach can then be used (i) to quantify an individual institution’s time-varying contribution to expected losses from system-wide liquidity shortfalls and (ii) to price insurance premia that provide incentives for banks to internalize the social cost of their individual funding decisions.     

The impact of the French Tobin tax

We analyze the impact of the introduction of the French Tobin tax on the turnover and measures of the liquidity and volatility of the affected stocks with nonparametric tests on individual stocks, difference-in-difference tests and other robustness checks controlling for simultaneous month-of-the-year and size effects. Our findings indicate that the tax produces a significant reduction in turnover and volatility (measured in terms of stock price volatility and the high–low price range) and inconclusive effects on liquidity when the latter is evaluated under the two dimensions of the estimated bid–ask spread and the Amihud (2002) price impact ratio.     

Is working capital management value-enhancing through alleviating financial constraints? Evidence from Chinese non-listed firms

Financial factors have been found highly important in influencing firms’ real activities and in promoting aggregate growth. Yet, the linkage between finance and firm-level total factor productivity (TFP) has been overlooked in the literature. I fill this gap using 147,310 non-listed Chinese firms over the period 1999–2007 to estimate a TFP model augmented with working capital. I find that TFP is strongly and significantly associated with working capital for private and foreign firms, but not for SOEs. More specifically, an increase in working capital has a negative (positive) effect on TFP in firms with positive (negative) working capital. Furthermore, highly external financial constrained, highly internal financial constrained, under-developed institutional regions and small size private and foreign firms are more sensitive to working capital.     

Systemic risk and dynamics of contagion: a duplex inter-bank network

This paper constructs a duplex banking network formed by credit relationships and information interaction via the banks’ balance sheet to model the structure of systemic risk and investigate the dynamic mechanism of contagion in terms of default and liquidity infection along with the factors that affect the extent of the contagion. We systematically explain the role that duplex banking networks play in different aspects of risk contagion. Through theoretical analysis and simulations, we conclude that asymmetric information interaction would increase the inflexibility of the system, which leads to liquidity shortage and possibly the collapse of the whole market. The weakness of systemic risk in the interior of the complex banking system can be characterized by the partial discount factor using illiquid assets in the information network. By improving the connectedness of the information network of the duplex networks, the spread of contagion can be partially slowed.