Existing theories of the term structure of swap rates provide an analysis of the Treasury-swap spread based on either a liquidity convenience yield in the Treasury market, or default risk in the swap market. While these models do not focus on the relation between corporate yields and swap rates...

Although modest in terms of sales, compared to most other sectors, luxury does get a high share of investors', financial analysts’ and media attention. Why would this sector receive a share of attention much bigger than its actual weight? Is it because of its glamourous image, or the...

This paper provides a survey of recent changes in the market microstructure of the 5 largest European Stock Exchanges. We first provide a brief statistical overview of European equity markets. Then we discuss how the introduction of the Investment Services Directive and the development of...

We consider information sharing between traders("floor brokers") who possess different types of information, namely information on the payoff of a risky security or information on the volume of liquidity trading in this security. We interpret these traders as dual -capacity brokers on the floor...

We analyze the effect of concealing limit order traders’ identities on market liquidity. We develop a model in which limit order traders have asymmetric information on the cost of limit order trading (which is determined by the exposure to informed trading). A thin limit order book signals to...

We develop a dynamic model of an order-driven market populated by discretionary liquidity traders. These traders must trade, yet can choose the type of order and are fully strategic in their decision. Traders differ by their impatience: less patient traders demand liquidity, more patient traders...

The entropy principle yields, for a given set of moments, a density that involves the smallest amount of prior information. We first show how entropy densities may be constructed in a numerically efficient way as the minimization of a potential. Next, for the case where the first four moments...

We prove existence of equilibria with proportional transaction costs on asset trading, using homotopy methods.

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic increase in both the number and the market share of screen-based trading systems. Electronic trading systems do offer lower operating costs and the possiblilty of remote access to the market. On the other hand, arguments based on the anonymity of...

In a three-period finite competitive exchange economy with incomplete financial markets and retrading, we show the generic existence of financial innovation which decreases equilibrium price volatility (as well as innovation which increases it). The existence is obtained under conditions of...