We analyze data from 2005 through 2009 that uniquely identify categories of traders to assess how speculators such as hedge funds and swap dealers relate to volatility and price changes. Examining various subperiods where price trends are strong, we find little evidence that speculators...

The volatility of aggregate economic activity in the United States decreased markedly in the mid eighties. The decrease involved several components of GDP and has been linked to a more stable economic environment, identified by smaller shocks and more effective policy, and a diverse set of...

We explore whether central bank intervention improves liquidity in the interbank market during the current subprime crisis with unique trade and quote data from the e-MID, the only regulated electronic interbank market in the world. Central bank intervention consistently creates greater...

This paper develops a model which is able to forecast exchange rate turmoil. Our starting point relies on the empirical evidence that exchange rate volatility is not constant. In fact, the modeling strategy adopted refers to the vast literature of the GARCH class of models, where the variance...

This paper analyzes exchange rate turmoil with a Markov switching GARCH model. We distinguish between two different regimes in both the conditional mean and the conditional variance: "ordinary" regime, characterized by low exchange rate changes and low volatility, and "turbulent" regime,...

We build a new asset pricing framework to study the effects of aggregate illiquidity on asset prices, volatilities and correlations. In our framework the Black-Scholes economy is obtained as the limiting case of perfectly liquid markets. The model is consistent with empirical studies on the...

This paper analyzes exchange rate turmoil with a Markov Switching GARCH model. We distinguish between two different regimes in both the conditional mean and the conditional variance: "ordinary" regime, characterized by low exchange rate changes and low volatility, and "turbulent" regime,...