We propose a parsimonious measure based solely on daily stock returns to characterize the severity of microstructure frictions at the individual stock level and assess the impact of frictions on the cross section of stock returns. Stocks with the largest frictions command a value-weighted return...

From 1963 through 2015, idiosyncratic risk (IR) is high when market risk (MR) is high. We show that the positive relation between IR and MR is highly stable through time and is robust across exchanges, firm size, liquidity, and market-to-book groupings. Though stock liquidity affects the...

Regulators, exchanges, and politicians are considering reining in maker-taker pricing, which is used as a competitive tool by trading venues to acquire order flow. Examining the 2013 reduction in trading fees operated by BATS on its European venues, we document significant effects on market...

Since 1965, average idiosyncratic risk (IR) has never been lower than in recent years. In contrast to the high IR in the late 1990s that has drawn considerable attention in the literature, average market-model IR is 44% lower in 2013-2017 than in 1996-2000. Macroeconomic variables help explain...

The aim of this survey is to review the most prevailing developments regarding the existence of the closed-end funds’ discounts and premiums and the factors which generate them. Despite the plethora of academic research conducted in order to reach a generally accepted explanation of the...

In this paper, we investigate the dynamic response of stock market volatility to changes in monetary policy. Using a vector autoregressive model, our findings reveal a significant and asymmetric response of stock returns and volatility to monetary policy shocks. Although the increase in the...

Does the presence of arbitrageurs decrease equilibrium asset price volatility? I study an economy with arbitrageurs, informed investors, and noise traders. Arbitrageurs face a trade-off between arbitrage and inference: they would like to buy assets in response to temporary price declines (the...

We investigate the dynamics of prices, information and expectations in a competitive, noisy, dynamic asset pricing equilibrium model. We show that prices are farther away from (closer to) fundamentals compared with average expectations if and only if traders over- (under-) rely on public...