We propose a model of limited arbitrage based on financial relationships. Financially constrained arbitrageurs may choose to seek additional financing from banks that have the technology to profit from the strategies themselves. A holdup problem arises because banks cannot commit to providing capital. To minimize competition, arbitrageurs will choose to stay constrained and underinvest in the arbitrage unless banks have sufficient reputational capital. This problem arises when mispricing is largest. More competition among financiers, higher arbitrageur wealth, and allowing for explicit contracts can worsen the holdup problem. When arbitrage is risky, financial relationships are more valuable, mitigating the problem

We analyze strategic speculators’ incentives to trade on information in a model where firm value is endogenous to trading, due to feedback from the financial market to corporate decisions. Trading reveals private information to managers and improves their real decisions, enhancing fundamental value. This feedback effect has an asymmetric effect on trading behavior: it increases (reduces) the profitability of buying (selling) on good (bad) news. This gives rise to an endogenous limit to arbitrage, whereby investors may refrain from trading on negative information. Thus, bad news is incorporated more slowly into prices than good news, potentially leading to overinvestment

We use the relative pricing of pairs of emerging market (EM) sovereign bonds issued in both dollars and euros to study capital markets frictions during periods of financial distress. During the 2007–2008 crisis, we find the emergence of large pricing anomalies in EM sovereign bond markets. Neither liquidity nor short-selling constraints can explain these persistent events. We use both cross-sectional and time-series information on these pricing anomalies to learn about specific geographical frictions in funding markets. We find support for explanations based on the interaction of banking capital-structure frictions and the fragility of wholesale funding markets. We document the effects of nonconventional policy interventions on this mispricing.

We use the relative pricing of pairs of emerging market (EM) sovereign bonds issued in both dollars and euros to study capital markets frictions during periods of financial distress. During the 2007–2008 crisis, we find the emergence of large pricing anomalies in EM sovereign bond markets. Neither liquidity nor short-selling constraints can explain these persistent events. We use both cross-sectional and time-series information on these pricing anomalies to learn about specific geographical frictions in funding markets. We find support for explanations based on the interaction of banking capital-structure frictions and the fragility of wholesale funding markets. We document the effects of nonconventional policy interventions on this mispricing.

We investigate whether and how an exogenous and unprecedented improvement in non-U.S. firms' financial-reporting quality affects post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD). We find that PEAD declines after the information shock, and this decrease is more pronounced for firms with fewer concurrent earnings announcements, greater institutional holdings, and lower limits to arbitrage. In addition, the decrease in PEAD is driven by firms with greater changes in financial reporting, an increase in analyst forecast accuracy and institutional ownership, and a decrease in limits to arbitrage. These findings support the mispricing explanation of PEAD, in particular the limited attention hypothesis, in an international setting

We investigate whether and how an exogenous and unprecedented improvement in non-U.S. firms' financial-reporting quality affects post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD). We find that PEAD declines after the information shock, and this decrease is more pronounced for firms with fewer concurrent earnings announcements, greater institutional holdings, and lower limits to arbitrage. In addition, the decrease in PEAD is driven by firms with greater changes in financial reporting, an increase in analyst forecast accuracy and institutional ownership, and a decrease in limits to arbitrage. These findings support the mispricing explanation of PEAD, in particular the limited attention hypothesis, in an international setting

Theoretical models suggest that the relation of speculators’ capital and market liquidity is highly nonlinear. Changes in capital only marginally affect liquidity when capital is available abundantly, but have a large effect when capital is scarce. In this paper, we confirm this relation within a regime-switching model using three broad measures of German bond market liquidity. We then analyze how the term structure of illiquidity premiums of German agency bonds is related to intermediaries’ capital and foreign flows. Illiquidity premiums are related to both variables only in the stress regime. The effect of intermediaries’ capital is most strongly pronounced at the short end of the term structure. In contrast, flows into and out of the illiquid bond market segment constitute a level effect as they are related to illiquidity premiums of all maturities.

Are anomalies strongest when investor sentiment or limits of arbitrage are considered to be greatest? We empirically explore these theoretically deducted predictions. We first identify, categorize, and replicate 100 long-short anomalies in the cross-section of expected equity returns. We then comprehensively study their interaction with popular proxies for time-varying market-level sentiment and arbitrage conditions. We find a powerful (relatively weak) role of the variation in proxies for sentiment (arbitrage constraints). In this context, the predictive power of sentiment is mostly restricted to the short leg of strategy returns. Our insights collectively suggest that the dynamics of sentiment combined with the base level (and not primarily the variations) of limits to arbitrage provide at least a partial explanation for inefficiencies

Large institutional investors dominate many financial markets. This paper develops a consumption-based model of markets in which all institutional traders recognize their impact on prices. Bilateral (buyer and seller) market power changes efficiency and arbitrage properties of equilibrium. Predictions match temporary and permanent price effects of supply shocks, order breakup, limits to arbitrage, nonneutrality of trading frequency, and real effects of shocks and announcements in periods other than event dates. Maximizing welfare and stabilizing liquidity through disclosure of information about fundamentals presents a trade-off. Equilibrium representation as "trading against price impact" provides a link with the industry's practice

We study an economy populated by three groups of myopic agents: constrained agents subject to a portfolio constraint that limits their risk taking, unconstrained agents subject to a standard nonnegative wealth constraint, and arbitrageurs with access to a credit facility. Such credit is valuable as it allows arbitrageurs to exploit the limited arbitrage opportunities that emerge endogenously in reaction to the demand imbalance generated by the portfolio constraint. The model is solved in closed-form, and we show that, in contrast to existing models with frictions and logarithmic agents, arbitrage activity has an impact on the price level and generates both excess volatility and the leverage effect. We show that these results are due to the fact that arbitrageurs amplify fundamental shocks by levering up in good times and deleveraging in bad times