We investigate the impact of high-frequency trading (HFT) on market quality and investor welfare using a general limit order book model. We find that while the presence of HFT always improves market quality under symmetric information, under asymmetric information this is the case only if...

Regulatory changes are transforming the multi-trillion dollar swaps market from a network of bilateral contracts to one in which swaps are cleared through central counterparties (CCPs). The stability of the new framework depends on the resilience of CCPs. Margin requirements are a CCP's first...

We analyse the impact of two major financial frictions on market quality in a high-frequency environment: market fragmentation and exchange fees. We find fragmentation significantly improves market quality, with benefits increasing with greater fragmentation. Fragmentation significantly reduces...

Should we regulate dark trading? This paper studies the effect of suspending dark pools on market fragmentation and liquidity. Using the European regulation MiFID II as a quasi-natural experiment, I show that dark volumes are redirected to lit venues and periodic auctions, in line with a...

Following previous research which established that liquidity commonality exists within one stock market over a short period of time, this paper finds that liquidity commonality also exists globally. Utilising a large number of stock exchanges and a twelve year research time frame, this paper...

Whether proprietary traders provide or take liquidity, and how their behavior evolves over the business cycle and across stocks, remains at the center of an ongoing debate. Using a unique dataset from the NYSE, we document that proprietary traders concentrate their trades in large and liquid...

Anonymous trading is the norm in today's financial markets but there are a few exceptions. We study one such case, the OMX Nordic Exchanges (Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Reykjavik) that have traditionally been more transparent than most other markets. On June 2, 2008 OMX Nordic switched...

We measure the extent to which consolidated liquidity in modern fragmented equity markets overstates true liquidity due to a phenomenon that we call Ghost Liquidity (GL). GL exists when traders place duplicate limit orders on competing venues, intending for only one of the orders to execute, and...

We derive closed form expressions for equilibrium asset prices and liquidity in an economy populated by a finite number of large, strategic, risk averse investors. The model allows for arbitrary risk preferences, any number of assets, and an arbitrary distribution of asset payoffs. In...