European sovereign bond trading occurs in a highly liquid interdealer market and a parallel dealer-customer market in which buy-side financial institutions request quotes from primary dealers. Synchronized price data from both market segments allow us to compare market quality. We find that...

Macroeconomic models of equity returns perform poorly. The proportion of daily index returns that these models explain is essentially zero. Instead of relying on macroeconomic determinants, our model includes a concept from microstructure - order flow. Order flow is the proximate determinant of...

The introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 created the conditions for an integrated government bond market in the euro area. Using a unique data set from the electronic trading platform Euro-MTS, we consider what is the quot;benchmarkquot; in this market. We develop and apply two definitions...

Macroeconomic models of equity and exchange rate returns perform poorly. The proportion of daily returns that these models explain is essentially zero. Instead of relying on macroeconomic determinants, we model equity price and exchange rate behavior based on a concept from microstructure -...

The two-country monetary model is extended to include a consumption externality with habit persistence. The model is simulated using the artificial economy methodology. The 'puzzles' in the forward market are re-examined. The model is able to account for: (a) the low volatility of the forward...

This paper addresses currency competition from an information perspective. Transactions in traditional models do not convey information, so transaction costs - the driver of competition outcomes - are driven by market size. In our model, transactions do convey information (consistent with recent...

The flexible-price two-country monetary model is extended to include a consumption externality with habit persistence. The model is simulated using the artificial economy methodology. It successfully explains (i) the high volatility of nominal and real exchange rates, (ii) the high correlation...

The two-country monetary model is extended to include a consumption externality with habit persistence. The model is simulated using the artificial economy methodology. The 'puzzles' in the forward market are re-examined. The model is able to account for: (a) the low volatility of the forward...

This paper presents evidence that the bid-ask spreads in euro rates increased relative to the corresponding bid-ask spreads in the German mark (DM) prior to the creation of the currency union. This comes with a decrease in transaction volume in the euro rates relative to the previous DM rates....

The debate over the possible extension of transparency regulation in Europe to include sovereign bonds has opened up a number of other issues in need of serious consideration. One such issue is the appropriateness of the entire infrastructure supporting the trading of European sovereign bonds....