A recent innovation in equity markets is the introduction of market maker ser-vices paid for by the listed companies themselves. We investigate why firms arewilling to pay a cost to improve the secondary market liquidity of their shares. Weshow that a contributing factor in this decision is the...

We discuss the notion of liquidity and liquidity risk within the financial system. We distinguish between three different liquidity types, central bank liquidity, funding and market liquidity and their relevant risks. In order to understand the workings of financial system liquidity, as well as...

In responding to the severity and broad scope of the financial crisis that began in 2007, the Federal Reserve has made aggressive use of both traditional monetary policy instruments and innovative tools in an effort to provide liquidity. In this paper, I examine the Fed’s actions in light of...

Liquidity backstops have important implications for financial stability. In this paper, we provide a microfoundation for the important role of liquidity backstops in mitigating runs (or, conversely, the role of the lack of liquidity backstops in exacerbating runs) based on a dynamic model of...

Greece is at a decisive moment. It has to choose between defaulting and an economic program of structural reforms, privatization, efficient tax collection, and shrinking of the public sector. Unilateral suspension of debt payments would be an economic catastrophe for Greeks, resulting in deep...

The recent financial crisis has triggered a major rethink of analytical approaches and policy towards financial stability. The crisis has encouraged a sharper focus on systemic risk, the inclusion of a financial sector in macroeconomic models, a shift from a microprudential to a macroprudential...

We consider the problem faced by an investor who must liquidate a given basket of assets over a finite time horizon. The investor's goal is to maximize the expected utility of the sales revenues over a class of adaptive strategies. We assume that the investor's utility has constant absolute risk...

Policymakers justify bailing out major financial firms by saying those firms are 'too big to fail.' They argue that such failure would subject the market to 'counterparty contagion' as the failed firms default on their obligations to other firms. But empirical evidence indicates that...

Recent regulation, mandating the clearing of credit default swaps (CDS) by a Central Clearing Counterparties (CCP), has rendered it's possible failure a serious threat to global nancial stability. This work investigates the potential failure of a CCP initiated by the default of a large dealer...

Using a search-based trading model, we show that either an illiquidity price premium or discount can arise between two assets with identical fundamentals. Liquidity between the two assets diverges endogenously in a self-reinforcing manner as trading is concentrated in the more liquid asset. When...