We analyze how market fragmentation affects market quality of SME and other less actively traded stocks. Compared to large stocks, they are less likely to be traded on multiple venues and show, if at all, low levels of fragmentation. Concerning the impact of fragmentation on market quality, we...

In this paper, we consider conditional measures of lead-lag relationships between aggregate growth and industry-level cash-flow growth in the US. Our results show that firms in leading industries pay an average annualized return 3.6% higher than that of firms in lagging industries. Using both...

Colocation services offered by stock exchanges enable market participants to achieve execution costs for large orders that are substantially lower and less sensitive to transacting against high-frequency traders. However, these benefits manifest only for orders executed on the colocated brokers'...

We study liquidity provision by competitive high-frequency trading firms (HFTs) in a dynamic trading model with private information. Liquidity providers face adverse selection risk from trading with privately informed investors and from trading with other HFTs that engage in latency arbitrage...

We show that (electronic) designated market makers are not necessarily beneficial to the stock market during ash crashes. They actually consume liquidity when it is most needed, even if they are rewarded by the exchange to provide immediacy. This behavior exacerbates the transient price impact,...

This paper studies the link between bank recapitalization and welfare in a dynamic production economy. The model features financial frictions because banks benefit of a cost advantage at monitoring firms and face costly equity issuance. The competitive equilibrium outcome is inecient because...

We offer evidence of a new stylized feature of corporate financing decisions: the tendency of managers to rely more on debt financing when earnings prospects are poor. We term this 'leaning against the wind' and consider three possible explanations: market timing, precautionary financing, and...

Private equity fund managers are typically required to invest their own money alongside the fund. We examine how this coinvestment affects the acquisition strategy of leveraged buyout funds. In a simple model, where the investment and capital structure decisions are made simultaneously, we show...

We investigate the role of competition on the outcome of Austrian Treasury auctions. Austria's EU accession led to an increase in the number of banks participating in treasury auctions. We use structural estimates of bidders' private values to examine the effect of increased competition on...

This paper analyses the consumption-investment problem of a loss averse investor equipped with s-shaped utility over consumption relative to a time-varying reference level. Optimal consumption exceeds the reference level in good times and descend to the subsistence level in bad times....