IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/33001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Microstructure of the Bond Market in the 20th Century

Author

Listed:
  • Biais, Bruno
  • Green, Richard

Abstract

Bonds are traded in opaque and fragmented over-the-counter markets. Is there some- thing special about bonds precluding transparent limit-order markets? Historical experience suggests this is not the case. Before WWII, there was an active market in corporate and municipal bonds on the NYSE. Activity dropped dramatically, in the late 1920s for munici- pals and in the mid 1940s for corporate, as trading migrated to the over-the-counter market. Average trading costs in municipal bonds on the NYSE were half as large in 1926-1927 as they are today over the counter. Trading costs in corporate bonds for small investors in the 1940s were as low or lower than they are now. The di¤erence in transactions costs likely re- ?ects the di¤erences in market structures, since underlying technological changes have likely reduced costs of matching buyers and sellers

Suggested Citation

  • Biais, Bruno & Green, Richard, 2018. "The Microstructure of the Bond Market in the 20th Century," TSE Working Papers 18-960, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:33001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2018/wp_tse_960.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Loon, Yee Cheng & Zhong, Zhaodong Ken, 2014. "The impact of central clearing on counterparty risk, liquidity, and trading: Evidence from the credit default swap market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 91-115.
    2. Richard C. Green & Burton Hollifield & Norman Schürhoff, 2007. "Financial Intermediation and the Costs of Trading in an Opaque Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(2), pages 275-314.
    3. Davis, Lance E. & Neal, Larry & White, Eugene, 2007. "The Highest Price Ever: The Great NYSE Seat Sale of 1928–1929 and Capacity Constraints," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(3), pages 705-739, September.
    4. 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.
    5. Biais, Bruno & Glosten, Larry & Spatt, Chester, 2005. "Market microstructure: A survey of microfoundations, empirical results, and policy implications," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 217-264, May.
    6. Daniel M. Holland, 1958. "Introduction to "The Income Tax Burden on Stockholders"," NBER Chapters, in: The Income Tax Burden on Stockholders, pages 1-18, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Riggs, Lynn & Onur, Esen & Reiffen, David & Zhu, Haoxiang, 2020. "Swap trading after Dodd-Frank: Evidence from index CDS," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(3), pages 857-886.
    8. Marco Pagano, 1989. "Trading Volume and Asset Liquidity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(2), pages 255-274.
    9. Paul Asquith & Thom Covert & Parag Pathak, 2013. "The Effects of Mandatory Transparency in Financial Market Design: Evidence from the Corporate Bond Market," NBER Working Papers 19417, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. 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.
    11. Green, Richard C. & Hollifield, Burton & Schurhoff, Norman, 2007. "Dealer intermediation and price behavior in the aftermarket for new bond issues," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 643-682, December.
    12. Marco Di Maggio & Amir Kermani & Zhaogang Song, 2016. "The Value of Trading Relationships in Turbulent Times," NBER Working Papers 22332, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Dan Bernhardt & Vladimir Dvoracek & Eric Hughson & Ingrid M. Werner, 2005. "Why Do Larger Orders Receive Discounts on the London Stock Exchange?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1343-1368.
    14. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1995. "What Do We Know about Capital Structure? Some Evidence from International Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1421-1460, December.
    15. Harry G. Guthmann, 1950. "The Movement Of Debt To Institutions And Its Implications For The Interest Rate," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 5(1), pages 70-87, March.
    16. Hendrik Bessembinder & Stacey Jacobsen & William Maxwell & Kumar Venkataraman, 2018. "Capital Commitment and Illiquidity in Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(4), pages 1615-1661, August.
    17. Anat R. Admati, Paul Pfleiderer, 1988. "A Theory of Intraday Patterns: Volume and Price Variability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 3-40.
    18. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:999-1037 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Rajan, Raghuram G. & Zingales, Luigi, 2003. "The great reversals: the politics of financial development in the twentieth century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 5-50, July.
    20. W. Braddock Hickman, 1960. "Statistical Measures of Corporate Bond Financing since 1900," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number hick60-1.
    21. Daniel M. Holland, 1958. "The Income Tax Burden on Stockholders," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number holl58-1.
    22. 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)

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Han, Song & Huang, Alan Guoming & Kalimipalli, Madhu & Wang, Ke, 2022. "Information and liquidity of over-the-counter securities: Evidence from public registration of Rule 144A bonds," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 59(PB).
    6. 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.
    7. John M. Griffin & Nicholas Hirschey & Samuel Kruger, 2023. "Do Municipal Bond Dealers Give Their Customers “Fair and Reasonable” Pricing?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(2), pages 887-934, April.
    8. Ricardo Lagos & Guillaume Rocheteau, 2009. "Liquidity in Asset Markets With Search Frictions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(2), pages 403-426, March.
    9. 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.
    10. Reichenbacher, Michael & Schuster, Philipp, 2022. "Size-adapted bond liquidity measures and their asset pricing implications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 425-443.
    11. deHaan, Ed & Li, Jiacui & Watts, Edward M., 2023. "Retail bond investors and credit ratings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1).
    12. 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.
    13. Li, Yubin & Zhao, Chen & Zhong, Zhaodong, 2019. "Price discrimination against retail Investors: Evidence from mini options," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 50-64.
    14. Mike Anderson & René M. Stulz, 2017. "Is Post-Crisis Bond Liquidity Lower?," NBER Working Papers 23317, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Reitz, Stefan & Schmidt, Markus A. & Taylor, Mark P., 2009. "Financial intermediation and the role of price discrimination in a two-tier market," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2009,13, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    18. Richter, Sylvia & Heyde, Frank & Horsch, Andreas & Wünsche, Andreas, 2021. "Determinants of project bond prices – Insights into infrastructure and energy capital markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    19. 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.
    20. Christine Cuny & Omri Even‐Tov & Edward M. Watts, 2021. "From Implicit to Explicit: The Impact of Disclosure Requirements on Hidden Transaction Costs," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 215-242, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services

    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:tse:wpaper:33001. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tsetofr.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.