We analyse a survey of 200 plan sponsors and investment managers in the US and Europe regarding the use of credit rating guidelines in the conduct of their investment activities. We find that ratings-based guidelines are widespread, but their forms and motivations vary considerably. The usage of...

This paper analyses the impact of a move from fractional to decimal pricing in the UK Long Gilt futures market. The reduced tick size following decimalisation leads to an increase in price clustering. The bid-ask spread, measured in ticks, increases following the tick size reduction. However,...

Trading volume and order flow have both been closely associated with informed trader activity in the market microstructure literature. Using theory that explains regular intraday patterns in trading data, we transform these two variables into proxies for private information and examine their...

This article examines how microstructure effects, evident in high frequency data, influence bid–ask spreads and volatility in transaction price series. It uses the event of European Monetary Union (EMU), and the upheaval that this entailed, as an opportunity to empirically investigate these...

Trading volume and order flow have both been closely associated with informed trader activity in the market microstructure literature. Using theory that explains regular intraday patterns in trading data, we transform these two variables into proxies for private information and examine their...

This paper studies a period containing three major structural changes, which constitute a natural experiment in the NYSE.Euronext-LIFFE European short-term interest rate (STIR) futures market. These changes comprise (1) a 50% reduction in minimum tick size for the most heavily traded contract,...

This paper applies an established bid-ask spread decomposition model to the inter-dealer spot foreign exchange market. In addition, the paper presents and tests a modified decomposition model which is specifically adapted to the features of order-driven markets and which is found to produce more...