We develop a dynamic model of trading through market-makers that incorporates two canonical sources of illiquidity: trading (or search) frictions and asymmetric information. We show that conventional predictions, derived from models that study either of these frictions in isolation, do not necessarily hold when both frictions are present. These results have important implications for technologi...

There are two competing theories explaining bank panics. One argues that panics are driven by real shocks, asymmetric information, and concerns about insolvency. The other theory argues that bank runs are self-fulfilling, driven by illiquidity and the beliefs of depositors. This paper tests predictions of these two theories using information uniquely available for the Panic of 1893. The results...

We propose a broad measure of liquidity for the overall financial market by exploiting its connection with the amount of arbitrage capital in the market and the potential impact on price deviations in US Treasurys. When arbitrage capital is abundant, we expect the arbitrage forces to smooth out the Treasury yield curve and keep the dispersion low. During market crises, the shortage of arbitrage...

The returns to hedge funds and other alternative investments are often highly serially correlated. In this paper, we explore several sources of such serial correlation and show that the most likely explanation is illiquidity exposure and smoothed returns. We propose an econometric model of return smoothing and develop estimators for the smoothing profile as well as a smoothing-adjusted Sharpe r...