Do institutions behave rationally in distressed markets?

The authors theoretically analyze the efficiency of liquidity flows in stabilizing distressed markets. Their analysis focuses on the incentives for financial institutions; specifically, they focus on arbitrage profit as an incentive and liquidity risk as a disincentive. The authors show that even with a major negative market shock, a financial institution can increase its market investment if it has sufficient funding liquidity. In addition, their model reveals a positive relationship between funding liquidity and liquidity flows. Thus, a distressed market might stabilize more quickly when financial institutions, acting as liquidity providers, have sufficient funding to bear the market's liquidity risk.