IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/2322.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Value of Arbitrage

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper studies the social value of closing price differentials in financial markets. We show that arbitrage gaps (price differentials between markets) exactly correspond to the marginal social value of executing an arbitrage trade. We further show that arbitrage gaps and measures of price impact are sufficient to compute the total social value from closing an arbitrage gap. Theoretically, we show that, for a given arbitrage gap, the total social value of arbitrage is higher in more liquid markets. We apply our framework to compute the welfare gains from closing arbitrage gaps in the context of covered interest parity violations and several duallisted companies. The estimates of the value of closing arbitrage gaps vary substantially across applications.

Suggested Citation

  • Eduardo Dávila & Daniel Graves & Cecilia Parlatore, 2022. "The Value of Arbitrage," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2322, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2322
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d23/d2322.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gromb, Denis & Vayanos, Dimitri, 2002. "Equilibrium and welfare in markets with financially constrained arbitrageurs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 361-407.
    2. Jun Liu, 2004. "Losing Money on Arbitrage: Optimal Dynamic Portfolio Choice in Markets with Arbitrage Opportunities," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 611-641.
    3. Péter Kondor, 2009. "Risk in Dynamic Arbitrage: The Price Effects of Convergence Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 631-655, April.
    4. Fernando Alvarez & Urban J. Jermann, 2004. "Using Asset Prices to Measure the Cost of Business Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1223-1256, December.
    5. Shleifer, Andrei, 2000. "Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292272.
    6. J. Donier & J. Bonart & I. Mastromatteo & J.-P. Bouchaud, 2015. "A fully consistent, minimal model for non-linear market impact," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(7), pages 1109-1121, July.
    7. Jonathan Donier & Julius Bonart & Iacopo Mastromatteo & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2014. "A fully consistent, minimal model for non-linear market impact," Papers 1412.0141, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2015.
    8. Costas Arkolakis & Arnaud Costinot & Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 2012. "New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 94-130, February.
    9. Gabaix, Xavier & Koijen, Ralph, 2021. "In Search of the Origins of Financial Fluctuations: The Inelastic Markets Hypothesis," CEPR Discussion Papers 16290, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Froot, Kenneth A. & Dabora, Emil M., 1999. "How are stock prices affected by the location of trade?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 189-216, August.
    11. Manuel Amador & Javier Bianchi & Luigi Bocola & Fabrizio Perri, 2020. "Exchange Rate Policies at the Zero Lower Bound," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(4), pages 1605-1645.
    12. Emmanuel Farhi & Iván Werning, 2016. "A Theory of Macroprudential Policies in the Presence of Nominal Rigidities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 1645-1704, September.
    13. Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2016. "Generalized Social Marginal Welfare Weights for Optimal Tax Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(1), pages 24-45, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Emilio Said, 2022. "Market Impact: Empirical Evidence, Theory and Practice," Working Papers hal-03668669, HAL.
    2. Emilio Said, 2022. "Market Impact: Empirical Evidence, Theory and Practice," Papers 2205.07385, arXiv.org.
    3. Vayanos, Dimitri & Wang, Jiang, 2013. "Market Liquidity—Theory and Empirical Evidence ," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1289-1361, Elsevier.
    4. Scruggs, John T., 2007. "Noise trader risk: Evidence from the Siamese twins," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 76-105, February.
    5. Péter Kondor, 2009. "Risk in Dynamic Arbitrage: The Price Effects of Convergence Trading," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 631-655, April.
    6. Vayanos, Dimitri & Wang, Jiang, 2012. "Market liquidity - theory and empirical evidence," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119044, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Chen, Shiyi & Chng, Michael T. & Liu, Qingfu, 2021. "The implied arbitrage mechanism in financial markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 222(1), pages 468-483.
    8. Qi Liu & Lei Lu & Bo Sun & Hongjun Yan, 2015. "A Model of Anomaly Discovery," International Finance Discussion Papers 1128, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2021. "The Inelastic Market Hypothesis: A Microstructural Interpretation," Papers 2108.00242, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    10. Benjamin Chabot & Eric Ghysels & Ravi Jagannathan, 2014. "Momentum Trading, Return Chasing, and Predictable Crashes," NBER Working Papers 20660, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Denis Gromb & Dimitri Vayanos, 2018. "The Dynamics of Financially Constrained Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(4), pages 1713-1750, August.
    12. Fengpei Li & Vitalii Ihnatiuk & Ryan Kinnear & Anderson Schneider & Yuriy Nevmyvaka, 2022. "Do price trajectory data increase the efficiency of market impact estimation?," Papers 2205.13423, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.
    13. Fr'ed'eric Bucci & Michael Benzaquen & Fabrizio Lillo & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2019. "Slow decay of impact in equity markets: insights from the ANcerno database," Papers 1901.05332, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2019.
    14. Fr'ed'eric Bucci & Iacopo Mastromatteo & Michael Benzaquen & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2019. "Impact is not just volatility," Papers 1905.04569, arXiv.org.
    15. Ansgar Walther, 2016. "Jointly Optimal Regulation of Bank Capital and Liquidity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(2-3), pages 415-448, March.
    16. Eduardo Dávila & Ansgar Walther, 2021. "Corrective Regulation with Imperfect Instruments," NBER Working Papers 29160, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Francesco Cordoni & Fabrizio Lillo, 2022. "Transient impact from the Nash equilibrium of a permanent market impact game," Papers 2205.00494, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.
    18. García Iborra, Rafael & Howden, David, 2016. "Uses and Misuses of Arbitrage in Financial Theory, and a Suggested Alternative," MPRA Paper 79802, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Louis Saddier & Matteo Marsili, 2023. "A Bayesian theory of market impact," Papers 2303.08867, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    20. Malcolm Baker & C. Fritz Foley & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2004. "The Stock Market and Investment: Evidence from FDI Flows," NBER Working Papers 10559, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    arbitrage; welfare; price impact; covered interest parity; dual-listed stocks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cwl:cwldpp:2322. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.html .

    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.