IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pbs/ecofin/2021-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Could transaction-based financial benchmarks be susceptible to collusive behaviour?

Author

Listed:
  • Lilian Muchimba

    (University of Portsmouth)

Abstract

Prior to the series of manipulation scandals, financial benchmarks were perceived as a competitive and objective reflection of underlying money markets (Stenfors and Lindo 2018). For example, the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), underpinning financial contracts worth trillions of dollars was unthinkable. To prevent manipulation, financial market regulators around the world have recommended a paradigm shift from estimation-based to transaction-based financial benchmarks. This shift is based on the mainstream economic view that financial benchmarks anchored on actual transactions are not susceptible to anticompetitive behaviour. However, unlike auction markets, underlying interbank money markets have unique features. As most activity takes place over-the-counter, they are opaque and are governed by conventions, trust and reciprocity. This complicates the achievement of competitive pricing. Using a novel dataset from Bank of Zambia, this paper makes an empirical investigation into transaction-based benchmarks’ susceptibility to anticompetitive behaviour. Additionally, it contributes to the theoretical understanding of transaction-based financial market benchmarks. The study reflects on financial market regulators’ recommendation to transit from estimation-based to transaction-based financial market benchmarks. Further, the study is of interest to central bankers, as short-term interbank rates are the first stage of the monetary transmission mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Lilian Muchimba, 2021. "Could transaction-based financial benchmarks be susceptible to collusive behaviour?," Working Papers in Economics & Finance 2021-11, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group.
  • Handle: RePEc:pbs:ecofin:2021-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.port.ac.uk/EconFinance/PBSEconFin_2021_11.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lilian Muchimba & Alexis Stenfors, 2021. "Beyond LIBOR: Money Markets and the Illusion of Representativeness," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(2), pages 565-573, April.
    2. 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.
    3. Andreas Schrimpf & Vladyslav Sushko, 2019. "Beyond LIBOR: a primer on the new benchmark rates," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    4. David Giles, 2007. "Benford's law and naturally occurring prices in certain ebaY auctions," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 157-161.
    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. Harry Cooperman & Darrell Duffie & Stephan Luck & Zachry Wang & Yilin (David) Yang, 2025. "Bank Funding Risk, Reference Rates, and Credit Supply," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 80(1), pages 5-56, February.
    2. Stenfors, Alexis, 2018. "Bid-ask spread determination in the FX swap market: Competition, collusion or a convention?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 78-97.
    3. Lartey, Theophilus & James, Gregory A. & Danso, Albert & Boateng, Agyenim, 2023. "Interbank market structure, bank conduct, and performance: Evidence from the UK," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 1-25.
    4. Kirti, Divya, 2022. "What are reference rates for?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    5. Wenqian Huang & Karamfil Todorov, 2022. "The post-Libor world: a global view from the BIS derivatives statistics," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    6. Li, Ming & Sun, Hang & Zong, Jichuan, 2021. "Intertemporal imitation behavior of interbank offered rate submissions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    7. Saroyan, Susanna, 2022. "Counterparty choice, maturity shifts and market freezes: lessons from the e-MID interbank market," INET Oxford Working Papers 2022-28, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    8. Müller, Alexander & Paulick, Jan, 2020. ""The devil is in the details, but so is salvation": Different approachesin money market measurement," Discussion Papers 66/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    9. Contessi, Silvio & De Pace, Pierangelo & Guidolin, Massimo, 2020. "Mildly explosive dynamics in U.S. fixed income markets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(2), pages 712-724.
    10. Hongcheng Ding & Xuanze Zhao & Zixiao Jiang & Shamsul Nahar Abdullah & Deshinta Arrova Dewi, 2024. "EUR-USD Exchange Rate Forecasting Based on Information Fusion with Large Language Models and Deep Learning Methods," Papers 2408.13214, arXiv.org.
    11. Cerutti, Eugenio M. & Obstfeld, Maurice & Zhou, Haonan, 2021. "Covered interest parity deviations: Macrofinancial determinants," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    12. Robert Clark & Shaoteng Li, 2022. "The Strategic Response of Banks to Macroprudential Policies: Evidence from Mortgage Stress Tests in Canada [LIBOR manipulation?]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(1), pages 187-216.
    13. Duffie, Darrell & Dworczak, Piotr, 2021. "Robust benchmark design," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 775-802.
    14. Indriawan, Ivan & Jiao, Feng & Tse, Yiuman, 2021. "The SOFR and the Fed’s influence over market interest rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    15. Zhanyu Chen & Kai Zhang & Hongbiao Zhao, 2022. "A Skellam market model for loan prime rate options," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 525-551, March.
    16. Dagfinn Rime & Andreas Schrimpf & Olav Syrstad, 2017. "Segmented money markets and covered interest parity arbitrage," BIS Working Papers 651, Bank for International Settlements.
    17. Marcin Maciaszczyk, 2018. "Znikający rynek stawek WIBOR. Efekt zmian regulacyjnych dla wyceny stóp rynku międzybankowego w Polsce," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 49(3), pages 217-252.
    18. Kalaichelvan, Mohandass & Lim Kai Jie, Shawn, 2012. "A Critical Evaluation of the Significance of Round Numbers in European Equity Markets in Light of the Predictions from Benford’s Law," MPRA Paper 40960, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Alex Frino & Michael Garcia, 2018. "Price discovery in short‐term interest rate markets: Futures versus swaps," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(10), pages 1179-1188, October.
    20. Rama Cont & Xin Guo & Renyuan Xu, 2021. "Interbank lending with benchmark rates: Pareto optima for a class of singular control games," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1357-1393, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bank of Zambia; banks; collusion; LIBOR; monetary transmission mechanism; reference rates;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    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:pbs:ecofin:2021-11. 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: Shuonan Zhang The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Shuonan Zhang to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/depbsuk.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.