Public Disclosure and Private Decisions: Equity Market Execution Quality and Order Routing

In 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requiredmarket centers to publish monthly execution-quality reportsin an effort to spur competition for order flow between markets.Using samples of stocks trading on several markets, we investigatewhether past execution quality affects order-routing decisionsand whether the new disclosure requirements influence this relationship.We find that routing decisions are associated with executionquality; markets reporting low execution costs and fast fillssubsequently receive more orders. Moreover, the reports themselvesappear to provide information that was unavailable previously.Our results are consistent with active competition for orderflow that can be influenced by public disclosure. (JEL G24,G28, K22)