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Secondary Market Transparency and Corporate Bond Issuing Costs
[Asset pricing and the bid–ask spread]

Author

Listed:
  • James Brugler
  • Carole Comerton-Forde
  • J Spencer Martin

Abstract

Mandated post-trade transparency in secondary markets lowers the cost of issuing corporate bonds. We show that costs are lower due to the mitigation of information asymmetry in the issuing process. Three pieces of evidence support this finding. First, new issues with higher information asymmetry experience relatively larger reductions in issuing costs. These bonds also experience lower reductions in trading activity than lower information asymmetry bonds, so liquidity cannot explain these results. Second, when a larger fraction of trades in comparable bonds are made post-trade transparent, new issue pricing improves. This holds when conditioning on expected bond liquidity. Third, transparency raises prices in the secondary market, but not by as much as it does for newly issued bonds.

Suggested Citation

  • James Brugler & Carole Comerton-Forde & J Spencer Martin, 2022. "Secondary Market Transparency and Corporate Bond Issuing Costs [Asset pricing and the bid–ask spread]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(1), pages 43-77.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:revfin:v:26:y:2022:i:1:p:43-77.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rof/rfab017
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    1. Bessembinder, Hendrik & Jacobsen, Stacey & Maxwell, William & Venkataraman, Kumar, 2022. "Overallocation and secondary market outcomes in corporate bond offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 444-474.
    2. Olfa Berrich & Halim Dabbou, 2023. "Tunisian corporate bond market liquidity: a qualitative approach," Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(5), pages 795-819, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corporate bonds; Capital costs; Market transparency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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