Using the September 15, 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers as an exogenous shock to funding costs, we show that hedge funds act as liquidity providers. Hedge funds using Lehman as prime broker could not trade after the bankruptcy, and these funds failed twice as often as otherwise-similar funds...

Using the September 15, 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers as an exogenous shock to funding costs, we show that hedge funds act as liquidity providers. Hedge funds using Lehman as prime broker could not trade after the bankruptcy, and these funds failed twice as often as otherwise-similar funds...

We examine liquidity transformation by funds of hedge funds (FoFs) by developing a new measure, illiquidity gap, which captures the mismatch between the liquidity of their portfolios and the liquidity available to their investors. We find that higher liquidity transformation is driven by FoFs'...