The financial crisis of 2007/8 illustrates the importance of institutional economic analysis of financial markets. However, there exists no literature in the tradition of Coase, North, Williamson on financial markets one could resort to. We assume that financial traders perform the same...

This article confirms the existence of substantial economies of scale in trading and post-trading financial market infrastructures (FMI), using the panel data of thirty stock exchanges, twenty-nine clearing houses, and twenty-three central securities depositories from thirty-six countries. We...

In many models of financial intermediation, markets reduce welfare because they limit the amount of risk-sharing intermediaries can offer. In this paper we study a model in which markets also promote investment in a productive technology. A trade-off between risk sharing and growth arises...

In an overlapping generations economy with (incomplete) financial markets but no intermediaries, there is underinvestment in safe assets. In an economy with intermediaries and no financial markets, accumulating reserves of safe assets allows returns to be smoothed, nondiversifiable risk to be...

Fluctuations in investor demand dramatically affect firms' valuation and access to capital. To quantify their real impact, we develop a dynamic investment model that endogenizes both the demand- and supply-side of capital. Strong investor demand elevates equity prices and dampens price impacts...

The present paper aims to test a new model comparison methodology by calibrating and comparing three agent-based models of financial markets on the daily returns of 18 indices. The models chosen for this empirical application are the herding model of Gilli & Winker, its asymmetric version by...

We show how to measure the welfare effects arising from increased data availability. When lenders have more data on prospective borrower costs, they can charge prices that are more aligned with these costs. This increases total social welfare, and transfers surplus from borrowers to lenders. We...

We show how to measure the welfare effects arising from increased data availability. When lenders have more data on prospective borrower costs, they can charge prices that are more aligned with these costs. This results in an increase in total social welfare, and a transfer of surplus from...