Do competition and incentives offered to designated market makers (DMMs) improve market liquidity? Using data from NYSE Euronext Paris, we show that an exogenous increase in competition among DMMs leads to a significant decrease in quoted and effective spreads, mainly through a reduction in...

We investigate empirically the impact of electronic market-makers on the reliability and the consistency with which financial markets provide transactional liquidity services. Our analysis is based on proprietary intraday data from U.S. futures markets. We document results of considerable...