IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finmar/v61y2022ics1386418122000271.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The visible hand: benchmarks, regulation, and liquidity

Author

Listed:
  • Aquilina, Matteo
  • Ibikunle, Gbenga
  • Mollica, Vito
  • Steffen, Tom

Abstract

According to recent theoretical work, a more transparent and precise benchmark assessment should positively impact liquidity in the underlying market. We exploit a benchmark regime change in the $289 trillion interest rate swaps market to test this prediction. Utilizing proprietary electronic order book data, we find improved liquidity effects in the USD swaps market following the transition to the regulated ICE Swap Rate. Regulations that improve the methodology and oversight of benchmarks can, therefore, impact markets positively. Conservative estimates of direct savings in a single swap tenor on one trading platform are in the region of $4 million - $7 million.

Suggested Citation

  • Aquilina, Matteo & Ibikunle, Gbenga & Mollica, Vito & Steffen, Tom, 2022. "The visible hand: benchmarks, regulation, and liquidity," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:61:y:2022:i:c:s1386418122000271
    DOI: 10.1016/j.finmar.2022.100734
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386418122000271
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.finmar.2022.100734?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre Collin‐Dufresne & Benjamin Junge & Anders B. Trolle, 2020. "Market Structure and Transaction Costs of Index CDSs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(5), pages 2719-2763, October.
    2. Duffie, Darrell & Dworczak, Piotr, 2021. "Robust benchmark design," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 775-802.
    3. Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2015. "Opening and closing price efficiency: Do financial markets need the call auction?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 208-227.
    4. Darrell Duffie & Piotr Dworczak & Haoxiang Zhu, 2017. "Benchmarks in Search Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1983-2044, October.
    5. Bessembinder, Hendrik & Maxwell, William & Venkataraman, Kumar, 2006. "Market transparency, liquidity externalities, and institutional trading costs in corporate bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 251-288, November.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:2:p:681-710 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Biais, Bruno & Hillion, Pierre & Spatt, Chester, 1995. "An Empirical Analysis of the Limit Order Book and the Order Flow in the Paris Bourse," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1655-1689, December.
    8. Zeileis, Achim & Kleiber, Christian & Kramer, Walter & Hornik, Kurt, 2003. "Testing and dating of structural changes in practice," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(1-2), pages 109-123, October.
    9. Andrew Caminschi & Richard Heaney, 2014. "Fixing a Leaky Fixing: Short‐Term Market Reactions to the London PM Gold Price Fixing," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(11), pages 1003-1039, November.
    10. Darrell Duffie, 2012. "Over-The-Counter Markets," Introductory Chapters, in: Dark Markets: Asset Pricing and Information Transmission in Over-the-Counter Markets, Princeton University Press.
    11. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    12. Abrantes-Metz, Rosa M. & Kraten, Michael & Metz, Albert D. & Seow, Gim S., 2012. "Libor manipulation?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 136-150.
    13. Michael A. Goldstein & Edith S. Hotchkiss & Erik R. Sirri, 2007. "Transparency and Liquidity: A Controlled Experiment on Corporate Bonds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(2), pages 235-273.
    14. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    15. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    16. Alexander Eisl & Rainer Jankowitsch & Marti G. Subrahmanyam, 2017. "The Manipulation Potential of Libor and Euribor," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(4), pages 604-647, September.
    17. Monticini, Andrea & Thornton, Daniel L., 2013. "The effect of underreporting on LIBOR rates," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 345-348.
    18. Michael J. Barclay, 2003. "Price Discovery and Trading After Hours," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 1041-1073.
    19. Benos, Evangelos & Payne, Richard & Vasios, Michalis, 2020. "Centralized Trading, Transparency, and Interest Rate Swap Market Liquidity: Evidence from the Implementation of the Dodd–Frank Act," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(1), pages 159-192, February.
    20. Martin D. D. Evans & Peter O'Neill & Dagfinn Rime & Jo Saakvitne, 2018. "Fixing the Fix? Assessing the Effectiveness of the 4pm Fix Benchmark," Working Papers gueconwpa~18-18-18, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    21. Flood, Mark D, et al, 1999. "Quote Disclosure and Price Discovery in Multiple-Dealer Financial Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(1), pages 37-59.
    22. Chordia, Tarun & Roll, Richard & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2008. "Liquidity and market efficiency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 249-268, February.
    23. Barth, James R. & Lin, Chen & Ma, Yue & Seade, Jesús & Song, Frank M., 2013. "Do bank regulation, supervision and monitoring enhance or impede bank efficiency?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2879-2892.
    24. Ekkehart Boehmer & Gideon Saar & Lei Yu, 2005. "Lifting the Veil: An Analysis of Pre‐trade Transparency at the NYSE," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 783-815, April.
    25. Chung, Dennis & Hrazdil, Karel, 2010. "Liquidity and market efficiency: A large sample study," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2346-2357, October.
    26. Perkins, Joanna & Mortby, Paul, 2015. "Evolving financial benchmarks: The impact on legacy contracts," Journal of Securities Operations & Custody, Henry Stewart Publications, vol. 7(4), pages 296-304, September.
    27. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    28. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    29. Aquilina, Matteo & Pirrone, F. Andrea, 2020. "The effects of regulating benchmarks," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    30. Amy K. Edwards & Lawrence E. Harris & Michael S. Piwowar, 2007. "Corporate Bond Market Transaction Costs and Transparency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1421-1451, June.
    31. Haoxiang Zhu, 2012. "Finding a Good Price in Opaque Over-the-Counter Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(4), pages 1255-1285.
    32. Darrell Duffie, 2012. "Dark Markets: Asset Pricing and Information Transmission in Over-the-Counter Markets," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9623.
    33. Bruno Biais & Pierre Hillion & Chester Spatt, 1999. "Price Discovery and Learning during the Preopening Period in the Paris Bourse," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1218-1248, December.
    34. Darrell Duffie & Jeremy C. Stein, 2015. "Reforming LIBOR and Other Financial Market Benchmarks," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 191-212, Spring.
    35. Lawrence E. Harris & Michael S. Piwowar, 2006. "Secondary Trading Costs in the Municipal Bond Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1361-1397, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benenchia, Matteo & Galati, Luca & Lepone, Andrew, 2024. "To fix or not to fix: The representativeness of the WM/R methodology that underpins the FX benchmark rates. A pre-registered report," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Harald Hau & Peter Hoffmann & Sam Langfield & Yannick Timmer, 2021. "Discriminatory Pricing of Over-the-Counter Derivatives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6660-6677, November.
    2. Chen, Fan & Zhong, Zhuo, 2017. "Pre-trade transparency in over-the-counter bond markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 14-33.
    3. Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Benjamin Junge & Anders B. Trolle, 2018. "Market Structure and Transaction Costs of Index CDSs," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 18-40, Swiss Finance Institute.
    4. Benos, Evangelos & Payne, Richard & Vasios, Michalis, 2020. "Centralized Trading, Transparency, and Interest Rate Swap Market Liquidity: Evidence from the Implementation of the Dodd–Frank Act," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(1), pages 159-192, February.
    5. Johannes A. Skjeltorp & Elvira Sojli & Wing Wah Tham, 2011. "Sunshine trading: Flashes of trading intent at the NASDAQ," Working Paper 2011/17, Norges Bank.
    6. Comerton-Forde, Carole & Tang, Kar Mei, 2009. "Anonymity, liquidity and fragmentation," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 337-367, August.
    7. Pierre Collin‐Dufresne & Benjamin Junge & Anders B. Trolle, 2020. "Market Structure and Transaction Costs of Index CDSs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(5), pages 2719-2763, October.
    8. Zhang, Anthony Lee, 2022. "Competition and manipulation in derivative contract markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 396-413.
    9. Wang, Junbo & Wu, Chunchi, 2015. "Liquidity, credit quality, and the relation between volatility and trading activity: Evidence from the corporate bond market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 183-203.
    10. Joseph, Andreas & Vasios, Michalis, 2022. "OTC Microstructure in a period of stress: A Multi-layered network approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    11. Gabor Pinter & Chaojun Wang & Junyuan Zou, 2024. "Size Discount and Size Penalty: Trading Costs in Bond Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 37(7), pages 2156-2190.
    12. Lannoo, Karel & Thomadakis, Apostolos, 2020. "Derivatives in Sustainable Finance," ECMI Papers 29791, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    13. O’ Hara, Maureen & Wang, Yihui & (Alex) Zhou, Xing, 2018. "The execution quality of corporate bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 308-326.
    14. Pham, Thu Phuong & Westerholm, P. Joakim, 2013. "A survey of research into broker identity and limit order book," Working Papers 17212, University of Tasmania, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, revised 16 Oct 2013.
    15. Easley, David & Hendershott, Terrence & Ramadorai, Tarun, 2014. "Leveling the trading field," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 65-93.
    16. Rzayev, Khaladdin & Ibikunle, Gbenga, 2019. "A state-space modeling of the information content of trading volume," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    17. Gündüz, Yalin & Ottonello, Giorgio & Pelizzon, Loriana & Schneider, Michael & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2018. "Lighting up the dark: Liquidity in the German corporate bond market," SAFE Working Paper Series 230, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    18. Schultz, Paul, 2012. "The market for new issues of municipal bonds: The roles of transparency and limited access to retail investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 492-512.
    19. Loon, Yee Cheng & Zhong, Zhaodong (Ken), 2016. "Does Dodd-Frank affect OTC transaction costs and liquidity? Evidence from real-time CDS trade reports," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 645-672.
    20. Chalmers, John & Liu, Yu (Steve) & Wang, Z. Jay, 2021. "The difference a day makes: Timely disclosure and trading efficiency in the muni market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 313-335.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Benchmarks; Regulation; Interest rates; Liquidity; ISDAFIX; ICE Swap rate;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:61:y:2022:i:c:s1386418122000271. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/finmar .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.