Adverse Selection, Liquidity, and Market Breakdown

Koralai Kirabaeva

Staff Working Papers from Bank of Canada

Abstract: This paper studies the interaction between adverse selection, liquidity risk and beliefs about systemic risk in determining market liquidity, asset prices and welfare. Even a small amount of adverse selection in the asset market can lead to fire-sale pricing and possibly to a market breakdown if it is accompanied by a flight-to-liquidity, a misassessment of systemic risk, or uncertainty about asset values. The ability to trade based on private information improves welfare if adverse selection does not lead to a market breakdown. Informed trading allows financial institutions to reduce idiosyncratic risks, but it exacerbates their exposure to systemic risk. Further, I show that in a market equilibrium, financial institutions overinvest into risky illiquid assets (relative to the constrained efficient allocation), which creates systemic externalities. Also, I explore possible policy responses and discuss their effectiveness.

Keywords: Financial institutions; Financial markets; Financial stability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 G01 G11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cta and nep-fmk
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bca:bocawp:10-32

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