Angelo Ranaldo

We provide the first systematic asset pricing analysis of one of the main safe asset categories, the repurchase agreement (repo). Based on the temporal and cross-sectional variation in short-term rates, we form a carry that, together with a market factor, prices these near-money assets in a linear pricing model. The carry depicts heterogeneity in nonpecuniary convenience yields of collateral assets and increases in the safety premium and the liquidity premium reflecting opportunity cost. Our carry helps explain the cross-section of short-term rates, as well as of long-term bond returns after accounting for standard bond pricing factors. (JEL E40, E41, G00, G01, G10, G11). Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

We propose and test a new channel that links funding liquidity risk and interest rates in short-term funding markets. Unlike existing theories that focus on premiums demanded by lenders, the funding liquidity risk channel postulates that borrowers exposed to liquidity shocks are willing to pay a markup for immediate funding. We test and quantify the channel using unique trade-by-trade data and uncover systematic differences across individual banks' funding cost driven by idiosyncratic liquidity risk. These differences are persistent over a decade, suggesting that the funding liquidity risk channel is relevant in general and not only arises during crisis times.

We study how individual banks borrow and lend in the euro unsecured and secured interbank market. We find that banks with lower credit worthiness replace unsecured with secured borrowing, which is consistent with a reduction in the supply of unsecured loans rather than a lower demand for funding. Riskier lenders replace unsecured with secured lending, suggesting that banks take precautionary measures and prefer to lend against safe collateral. Our results highlight the importance of a joint analysis of unsecured and secured funding. Separate analyses only give a partial view and might yield misleading conclusions when banks access both funding sources.

We analyze the effects of prudential regulation on short-term interest rates. The European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) induces clearing houses (CCPs) to supply large amounts of cash in reverse repurchase agreements (repos). Basel III, in contrast, disincentivizes the borrowing demand by tightening banks’ balance sheet constraints. Using unique regulatory data of CCP investment activity and repo transactions, we find compelling evidence for both the supply and demand channels. The overall effects are decreasing short-term rates and increasing market imbalances in various forms, all of which entail unintended consequences due to the new regulatory framework.

This work studies the information content of trades in the world’s largest over-the-counter (OTC) market, the foreign exchange (FX) market. It analyzes a novel, comprehensive order flow data set, distinguishing among different groups of market participants and covering a large cross-section of currency pairs. We find compelling evidence of heterogeneous superior information across agents, time, and currency pairs, consistent with the asymmetric information theory and OTC market fragmentation. A trading strategy based on the permanent price impact, capturing asymmetric information risk, generates high returns even after accounting for risk, transaction cost, and other common risk factors shown in the FX literature.

Using unique data at transaction and identity levels, we provide the first systematic study of interest rate swaps traded over the counter (OTC). We find substantial and persistent heterogeneity in derivative prices consistent with a pass-through of regulatory costs on to market prices via so-called valuation adjustments (XVA). A client pays a higher Price to buy interest rate protection from a dealer (i.e., the client pays a higher fixed rate) if the contract is not cleared via a central counterparty. This OTC premium decreases by posting initial margins and with higher buyer's creditworthiness. OTC premia are absent for dealers suggesting bargaining power.

Repo markets play a major role in redistributing liquidity and collateral between financial institutions. A unique transaction-level database reveals how the euro-denominated repo market has performed since the mid-2000s. We find that the market recovered strongly from periods of intense stress, even though it remains segmented according to the home country of the collateral used. In recent years, signs of segmentation have increased as the main motivation of repo market participants has shifted from funding to the trading of collateral.

We propose a new method to estimate the bid-ask spread when quote data are not available. Compared to other low-frequency estimates, this method utilizes a wider information set, namely, readily available close, high, and low prices. In the absence of end-of-day Quote data, this method generally provides the highest cross-sectional and average time-series correlations with the TAQ effective spread benchmark. Moreover, it delivers the most accurate estimates for less liquid stocks. Our estimator has many potential applications, including an accurate measurement of transaction cost, systematic liquidity risk, and commonality in liquidity for U.S. stocks dating back almost one century.

The Swiss Treasury has used the sealed-bid, uniform-price auction format for allocating government bonds since 1980. In this study, we examine the authorities' motivation for choosing the uniform-price auction. In addition, we describe how the institutional set-up evolved over time. It includes bidding requirements, class of bidders, pre-auction information, the bidding process, the determination of the cut-off price and the release of post-auction information. Finally, we provide the details of each of the 356 auctions that were held until and including 2014.