We model competition for liquidity provision between high-frequency traders (HFTs) and slower execution algorithms designed to minimize transaction costs for buy-side institutions (B-Algos). Under continuous pricing, B-Algos dominate liquidity provision by using aggressive limit orders to...

We incorporate discrete tick size and allow non-high-frequency traders (non-HFTs) to supply liquidity in the framework of Budish, Cramton, and Shim (2015). When adverse selection risk is low or tick size is large, the bid-ask spread is typically below one tick, and HFTs dominate liquidity...

We model competition for liquidity provision between high-frequency traders (HFTs) and slower execution algorithms designed to minimize transaction costs for buy-side institutions (B-Algos). Under continuous pricing, B-Algos dominate liquidity provision by using aggressive limit orders to...

Financial regulations and clientele segmentation explain the proliferation of order types on stock exchanges. Plain market and limit orders lose money, indicating that informed traders use complex orders. Fifty-seven percent of trading volume comes from non-routable orders, which are designed to...

Financial regulations and clientele segmentation explain the proliferation of order types on stock exchanges. Plain market and limit orders lose money, indicating that informed traders use complex orders. Fifty-seven percent of trading volume comes from non-routable orders, which are designed to...

Economists usually assume that price and quantity are continuous variables, while most market designs, in reality, impose discrete tick and lot sizes. We study a firm’s trade-off between these two discretenesses in U.S. stock exchanges, which mandate a one-cent minimum tick size and a...

Using novel daily holding data for exchange-traded funds (ETFs), I identify three types of ETFs that adopt distinct approaches to rebalancing their portfolios, which generates meaningful return heterogeneity. First, 56% of ETFs track public indices that pre-announce their rebalances, and they...

This dissertation contains three essays concerning two broad areas, namely, optimal capital structure and risky assets modeling. In the first paper, we study corporate debt values, capital structure, and the term structure of interest rates in a unified framework. We employ numerical techniques...