This paper examines the drivers of liquidity shortages in the Mexican government bond market. We use unique transaction- and quote level data with information on end-investors to construct an index of bond market liquidity. We find that liquidity remained stable in recent years, although temporary shortages arose amid domestic and global market stress. The analysis suggests that the largest liquidity squeezes have tended to be driven by foreign investors, whose sell-offs were especially pronounced in less liquid market segments. While domestic banks often absorbed part of the shock, other domestic investors--with the notable inclusion of domestic pension and mutual funds--appeared to take a more opportunistic stance depending on the nature of the shock.
This paper surveys markets for corporate debt securities in the major industrial countries and the international markets. The discussion includes a comparison of the sizes of the markets for various products, as well as the key operational, institutional, and legal features of primary and secondary markets. Although there are some signs that debt markets may be emphasized in the future by some countries, it remains true that North American debt markets are the most active and liquid in the world. The international debt markets are, however, growing in importance. The paper also investigates some of the reasons for the underdevelopment of domestic bond markets and the consequences of firms shifting their debt financing needs from banks to securities markets.
This paper provides an overview of indicators that can be used to illustrate and analyze liquidity developments in financial markets. The measures include bid-ask spreads, turnover ratios, and price impact measures. They gauge different aspects of market liquidity, namely tightness (costs), immediacy, depth, breadth, and resiliency. These measures are applied in selected foreign exchange, money, and capital markets to illustrate their operational usefulness. A number of measures must be considered because there is no single theoretically correct and universally accepted measure to determine a market's degree of liquidity and because market-specific factors and peculiarities must be considered.
This paper provides an overview of sovereign debt portfolio risks and discusses various liability management operations (LMOs) and instruments used by public debt managers to mitigate these risks. Debt management strategies analyzed in the context of helping reach debt portfolio targets and attain desired portfolio structures. Also, the paper outlines how LMOs could be integrated into a debt management strategy and serve as policy tools to reduce potential debt portfolio vulnerabilities. Further, the paper presents operational issues faced by debt managers, including the need to develop a risk management framework, interactions of debt management with fiscal policy, monetary policy, and financial stability, as well as efficient government bond markets.
Chile has a large but relatively illiquid stock market. Global factors such as global risk appetite and monetary policy in advanced economies are key cyclical determinants of liquidity in Chilean equities. Evidence from a cross-section of emerging markets suggests strong protection of minority shareholders can help improve stock market liquitidity. Currently, illiquid in Chilean may have to pay 31⁄2 percent more as cost of equity. Corporate governance should be improved, namely through the adoption of a stewardship code.
Why do stock and housing markets sometimes experience amazing booms followed by massive busts and why is this happening more and more frequently? In order to answer these questions, William Quinn and John D. Turner take us on a riveting ride through the history of financial bubbles, visiting, among other places, Paris and London in 1720, Latin America in the 1820s, Melbourne in the 1880s, New York in the 1920s, Tokyo in the 1980s, Silicon Valley in the 1990s and Shanghai in the 2000s. As they do so, they help us understand why bubbles happen, and why some have catastrophic economic, social and political consequences whilst others have actually benefited society. They reveal that bubbles start when investors and speculators react to new technology or political initiatives, showing that our ability to predict future bubbles will ultimately come down to being able to predict these sparks.
In the past, foreign shocks arrived to national economies mainly through trade channels, and transmissions of such shocks took time to come into effect. However, after capital globalization, shocks spread to markets almost immediately. Despite the increasing macroeconomic dangers that the situation generated at emerging markets in the South, nobody at the North was ready to acknowledge the pro-cyclicality of the financial system and the inner weakness of “decontrolled” financial innovations because they were enjoying from the “great moderation.” Monetary policy was primarily centered on price stability objectives, without considering the mounting credit and asset price booms being generated by market liquidity and the problems generated by this glut. Mainstream economists, in turn, were not majorly attracted in integrating financial factors in their models. External pressures on emerging market economies (EMEs) were not eliminated after 2008, but even increased as international capital flows augmented in relevance thereafter. Initially economic authorities accurately responded to the challenge, but unconventional monetary policies in the US began to create important spillovers in EMEs. Furthermore, in contrast to a previous surge in liquidity, funds were now transmitted to EMEs throughout the bond market. The perspective of an increase in US interest rates by the FED is generating a reversal of expectations and a sudden flight to quality. Emerging countries’ currencies began to experience higher volatility levels, and depreciation movements against a newly strong US dollar are also increasingly observed. Consequently, there are increasing doubts that the “unexpected” favorable outcome observed in most EMEs at the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) would remain.
This paper applies the “market microstructure” literature to the specific features of government securities markets and draws implications for the strategy to develop government securities markets. It argues for an active role of the authorities in fostering the development of efficient market structures.
The Asian Bond Markets Initiative (ABMI) was launched in December 2002 by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea---collectively known as ASEAN+3 to strengthen financial stability and reduce the region’s vulnerability to the sudden reversal of capital flows. This paper also provides recommendations for addressing new sources of market volatility and other challenges within and outside the framework of the Asian Bond Markets Initiative.
In 1978, China embarked on a gradual but far-reaching reform of its economic system. This paper focuses on the achievements so far in reforming the financial sector, the legal framework for financial transactions, the payments system, and the monetary policy and foreign exchange system. It also analyzes the tasks ahead to achieve the goals set in these areas for the year 2000.
