We study the provision of liquidity in futures markets as price volatility changes. For both active and inactive contracts, customer trading costs do not increase with volatility. However, for three of the four contracts studied, the nature of liquidity supply changes with volatility....

Hedgers and a risk-neutral informed trader choose between a broker who takes a position in the asset (a capital broker) and a broker who does not (a discount broker). The capital broker exploits order flow information to mimic informed trades and offset hedgers' trades, reducing informed profits...

Dual trading is the practice whereby futures floor traders execute trades both for their own and customers' accounts on the same day. We provide evidence, in the context of restrictions on dual trading, that aggregate liquidity measures, such as the average bid-ask spread, may be misleading...

Multiple informed traders and noise traders pay fees to trade through multiple brokers. Brokers may trade with their customers in the same transaction (simultaneous dual trading) or trade after their customers in a separate transaction (consecutive dual trading). Brokers' expected profits from...

This paper investigates the role of consumer credit in determining real consumption growth in aggregate, post-war U.S. data. This paper presents evidence that predictable growth in consumer credit is significantly related to consumption growth. The finding is inconsistent with the predictions of...