S. Viswanathan

Market Architecture: Limit Order Books Versus Dealership Markets

We analyze the customer’s choice with respect to a limit-order book, a dealership market, and a hybrid market structure that combines the two. The customer’s sell order is competed for and divided among a finite number of risk-averse market makers. We present a general characterization of equilibrium in the limit-order book. We show that when the order flow has a linear hazard ratio, the limit order book is preferred by risk neutral customers. However, a risk averse customer will prefer to trade in a dealership market when the number of market makers is large. Further, for risk averse customers, the hybrid market structure can dominate the dealership market and the limit-order book. The results are driven by a tradeoff between two features of the equilibrium demand schedules: a bid-shading effect that operates differently in a limit-order book compared with a dealership market, and a zero-quantity bid–ask spread that is present in the limit-order book only. r 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. JEL classificaion: D43; D44; D82; G19

Inter-Dealer Trading in Financial Markets

We compare the following multi-stage inter-dealer trading mechanisms: a one-shot uniform-price auction, a sequence of unit auctions (sequential auctions), and a limit-order book. With uninformative customer orders, sequential auctions are revenue-preferred because winning dealers in earlier stages restrict quantity in subsequent auctions so as to raise the price. Since winning dealers make higher profits, dealers compete aggressively, thus yielding higher customer revenue. With informative customer orders, winning dealers use their private information in subsequent trading, reducing liquidity. Sequential trading breaks down when the customer order flow is too informative, while the limit-order book is robust and yields higher revenues.

Financial Intermediary Capital

We propose a dynamic theory of financial intermediaries that are better able to collateralize claims than households, that is, have a collateralization advantage. Intermediaries require capital as they can borrow against their loans only to the extent that households themselves can collateralize the assets backing these loans. The net worth of financial intermediaries and the corporate sector are both state variables affecting the spread between intermediated and direct finance and the dynamics of real economic activity, such as investment, and financing. The accumulation of net worth of intermediaries is slow relative to that of the corporate sector. The model is consistent with key stylized facts about macroeconomic downturns associated with a credit crunch, namely, their severity, their protractedness, and the fact that the severity of the credit crunch itself affects the severity and persistence of downturns. The model captures the tentative and halting nature of recoveries from crises.

Household Risk Management

Insurance has an intertemporal aspect as insurance premia have to be paid up front. We argue that the financing of insurance is key to understanding basic insurance patterns and insurers balance sheets. Limited enforcement implies that insurance is globally monotone increasing in household net worth and income, incomplete, and precautionary. These results hold in economies with income risk, durable goods and collateral constraints, and durable goods price risk, under quite general conditions. In equilibrium, insurers are financial intermediaries with collateralized loans as assets and diversified portfolios of insurance claims as liabilities. Collateral scarcity lowers the interest rate, reduces insurance, and increases inequality.

Risk Management in Financial Institutions

We study risk management in financial institutions using data on hedging of interest rate and foreign exchange risk. We find strong evidence that institutions with higher net worth hedge more, controlling for risk exposures, both across institutions and within institutions over time. For identification, we exploit net worth shocks resulting from loan losses due to drops in house prices. Institutions that sustain such shocks reduce hedging significantly relative to otherwise similar institutions. The reduction in hedging is differentially larger among institutions with high real estate exposure. The evidence is consistent with the theory that financial constraints impede both financing and hedging.