This paper studies a dynamic network economy where risk averse traders trade multi-laterally over the counter but cannot commit to fulfill their short positions. We show that, although the level of trade is below the first-best, bilateral clearing with collateral can provide an allocation superior to those without collateral. However, with use of collateral, the optimal bilateral clearing contr...

Fraud and misconduct in financial markets have recently become a key regulatory issue against the backdrop of the financial crisis. This paper investigates the sanctions policy and practices of the French financial regulator, Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF). It argues that, over time, the AMF has shifted from substantive to procedural regulation of finance. This shift consists in departin...

This study provides an intraday analysis of Exchange Traded Fund markets. We investigate trading implications surrounding the open and close, and compare price discovery and liquidity in a multi-market trading framework. In addition, we test whether the difference of ETFs with regard to market maker inventory management causes intraday spread patterns to differ from those of the underlying secu...

Because of the recent surge in U.S. personal defaults, Congress is currently debating bankruptcy reform legislation requiring a means test for Chapter 7 filers. This paper explores the effects of such a reform in a model where, in contrast to previous work, bankruptcy options and production are explicitly taken into account. Our findings indicate that means testing would not improve upon curren...

This paper empirically evaluates the effects of NASDAQ’s $1-minimum-bid-price threshold (known as the one-dollar rule) as part of its listing maintenance criteria. Even though this controversial rule was introduced as early as in September 1991, it remained unexplored by academic research. Empirical evidence compiled in this study suggests that the implementation of this one-dollar rule is just...

The severity of banking crises increases with disinformation about the losses banks incur in making politically directed loans and about the budgetary costs to the government of standing ready to absorb these losses increases. When (as it eventually must) such disinformation begins to lose credibility, silent runs test the government’s commitment to supporting its insolvent banks. An open banki...

In a multi-industry growth model, firms require external funds to conduct productivityenhancing R&D, and face financing constraints. The cost of research differs across industries, so that financing constraints hinder productivity growth in some industries more than in others. Equilibrium industry dynamics map into a differences-indifferences regression specification where industry growth depen...

This paper proposes an unobserved fundamental component of volatility as a measure of risk. This concept of fundamental volatility may be more meaningful than the usual measures of volatility for market regulators. Fundamental volatility can be obtained using a stochastic volatility model, which allows us to `®lterÕ out the signal in the volatility information. We decompose four FTSE100 stock i...

I document the profits on a trade that is long the old 30-year Treasury bond and short the new 30-year Treasury bond, and is rolled over every auction cycle from June 1995 to November 1999. Despite the systematic convergence of the spread over the auction cycle, the average profits are close to zero. The difference in repo-market financing rates between the two bonds is a significant cost of ca...

This paper investigates the impact of price limits on the Brazilian futures markets using high frequency data. The aim is to identify whether there is a cool-off or a magnet effect. For that purpose, we examine a tick-by-tick data set that includes all contracts on the São Paulo stock index futures traded on the Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange from January 1997 to December 1999. The r...