Technology transformed the trading of financial assets but has been slower to come to corporate bond trading. Combining proprietary data from MarketAxess with regulatory TRACE data, we investigate how electronic request for quote (RFQ) trading affects bond dealers and trading more generally. We...

This paper investigates execution quality issues in corporate bond trading. Using an extensive sample of bond trades by insurance companies, we find that an insurance company entering a trade of similar size and on the same side for the same bond on the same day with the same dealer will receive...

We examine the microstructure of liquidity provision in the COVID-19 corporate bond liquidity crisis. During the two weeks leading to Fed interventions, transaction costs soared, trade-size pricing inverted, and dealers, in particular non-primary dealers, shifted from buying to selling, causing...

We use a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the causal effects of the Federal Reserve's Primary and Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facilities (CCFs) on corporate bond credit spreads. In particular, we exploit the publication of the constituents of the SMCCF Broad Market Index to...

The rapid rise of corporate bond portfolio trading since the end of 2017 has attracted attention from practitioners and regulators alike. I show that inventory hedging explains the recent meteoric rise of corporate bond portfolio trading, likely aided by the recent proliferation of credit index...

Corporate bond dealers build up considerable inventories for which they rely on short-term funding. I provide empirical evidence that dealers' inventory financing constraints are a crucial determinant of the costs of their liquidity provision in corporate bond markets. Constructing a unique...

We study a global panel of green and conventional corporate bonds to assess the borrowing cost advantage at issuance for green bond issuers. We find that, on average, green corporate bonds have a yield spread that is 8 basis points lower relative to conventional bonds. We link this borrowing...

We study the cross-sectional effects of Basel regulations on dealer intermediation in the U.S. corporate bond market. Using intra-quarter variation in the intensity of Basel regulatory requirements, we document pronounced inventory contractions when regulatory pressure rises near quarter-ends....

This paper examines the information contents of trading activities in the corporate bond market prior to earnings announcements. We find that the direction of pre-announcement bond trading is significantly related to earnings surprises. Such linkage is most evident prior to negative news and in...

Taking advantage of recently augmented corporate bond transaction data, we examine the pricing implications of informed trading in corporate bonds and its ability to predict corporate defaults. We find that microstructure measures of information asymmetry seem to capture adverse selection in...