Alternative assets are gaining increasing importance in investors' portfolios. One of their defining characteristic is their poor liquidity, which often translates into an inherent smoothing process of the returns. For asset allocation purposes, this feature has to be seriously addressed as it...

We study common determinants of daily bid-ask spreads and trading volume for the bond and stock markets over the 1991-98 period. We find that spread changes in one market are affected by lagged spread and volume changes in both markets. Further, spread and volume changes are predictable to a...

This paper explores liquidity movements in stock and Treasury bond markets over a period of more than 1800 trading days. Cross-market dynamics in liquidity are documented by estimating a vector autoregressive model for liquidity (that is, bid-ask spreads and depth), returns, volatility, and...

We consider the channel consisting in transferring the credit risk associated with refinancing operations between financial institutions to market participants. In particular, we analyze liquidity and volatility premia on the French government debt securities market, since these assets are used...

This thesis contributes to the analysis and measure of systemic risk through four chapters. In the first chapter, we discuss the notion of systemic risk and detail the methodological issues of modeling. The second chapter proposes a structural model of solvency contagion. Within an equilibrium...

The Basel 3 Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) is a micro prudential instrument to strengthen the liquidity position of banks. However if in extreme scenarios the LCR becomes a binding constraint, the interaction of bank behaviour with the regulatory rule can have negative externalities. We simulate...

This paper analyzes the impact of a liquidity requirement similar to the Basel 3 Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) on banks' funding costs and corporate lending rates. Using a dataset of 26 Dutch banks from January 2008 to December 2011, I find that banks which are just above/below their...