Using data from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange we analyze price formation and liquidity in a non-anonymous environment with similarities to the floor of the NYSE. Our main hypothesis is that the non-anonymity allows the specialist to assess the probability that a trader trades on the basis of private information. He uses this knowledge to price discriminate. This can be achieved by quoting a large spread and granting price improvement to traders deemed uninformed. Consistent with our hypothesis we find that price improvement reflects lower adverse selection costs but does not lead to a reduction in the specialist's profit. Further, the quote adjustment following transactions at the quoted bid or ask price is more pronounced than the quote adjustment after transactions at prices inside the spread. Our results indicate that anonymity comes at the cost of higher adverse selection risk.

[We develop a model in which limit order traders possess volatility information. We show that in this case the size of the bid-ask spread is informative about future volatility. Moreover, if volatility information is in part private, we establish that (i) the size of the bid-ask spread and (ii) its informativeness about future volatility should change in the same direction when limit order traders' identifiers stop being disclosed. We test these predictions using data from the Paris Bourse. As expected, we find that the average quoted spread and its informativeness are significantly smaller when limit order traders' identifiers are concealed. These findings suggest that the limit order book is a channel for volatility information.]

We conduct an extensive study of underpricing in the euro area bond market and find strong evidence of underpricing. In cross-sectional regressions we find patterns that are consistent with bookbuilding-based theories of underpricing and inconsistent with liquidity-based explanations. The underpricing has increased considerably during the financial crisis and has remained at an elevated level since. We also show that secondary market liquidity in the euro area bond market is significantly lower in the post-crisis period than pre-crisis. These results are consistent with recent US evidence and may represent unintended side effects of new regulation enacted in the wake of the financial crisis, such as Basel III and the Volcker Rule. Furthermore, our evidence suggests that the ECB’s corporate sector purchase programs has led to a decrease in underpricing.

The German Corporate Governance Code works according to the comply-or-explain principle. One of its recommendations was to publish the remuneration of the members of the executive board on an individual basis. We examine the characteristics of the firms that complied with the code requirement. Our results indicate that firms that paid higher average remunerations to their management board members were less likely to comply, whereas firms with higher Tobin's Q were more likely to comply. We also document a non-monotonic relation between ownership concentration and the probability of compliance that is consistent with standard corporate governance arguments. Due to the fact that the number of firms complying with the disclosure requirement was low, a new law was passed that mandates disclosure unless the shareholders' meeting (with a 75% majority) decides otherwise. We find that this “loophole” in the new legislation is exploited by smaller firms, firms with comparatively high levels of executive remuneration, and firms with concentrated ownership. We discuss the implications of our results for the effectiveness of the comply-or-explain regulation.

In the German two-tiered system of corporate governance, it is not uncommon for chief executive officers (CEOs) to become the chairman of the supervisory board of the same firm upon retirement. This practice has been the subject of controversial debate because of potential conflicts of interest. As a member of the supervisory board, the former CEO must monitor his successor and former colleagues and is involved in setting their pay. We analyze a panel covering 150 listed firms over a 10-year period. Consistent with a leniency bias, we find evidence that firms in which a former CEO serves on the supervisory board pay their executives more. We further find weak evidence that the compensation of the members of the supervisory board is also higher. Short-run event study results indicate that the announcement of the transition of a retiring CEO to the supervisory board is considered good news. Thus, despite the increases in executive compensation we document, CEO transitions are not a cause of concern for shareholders.

To resolve the IPO underpricing puzzle it is essential to analyze who knows what when during the issuing process. In Germany, broker-dealers make a market in IPOs that starts as soon as the offer range is published. We examine these pre-IPO prices and find that they are highly informative. They are closer to the first price subsequently established on the exchange than both the midpoint of the offer range and the offer price. The pre-IPO prices explain a large part of the underpricing left unexplained by other variables. The results imply that information asymmetries are much lower than the observed variance of underpricing suggests. They cast doubt on the informational role of bookbuilding and the relevance of the winner's curse problem.

This paper provides a detailed analysis of the call auction procedure on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. We develop a direct measure of execution costs in a call auction that is comparable to the bid–ask spread in a continuous market. We find that transaction costs for small transactions in the call market are lower than the quoted spread in the continuous market, whereas transaction costs for large transactions in the call market are higher than the spread in the continuous market. An analysis of specialist (Makler) participation shows that Maklers provide a valuable service to the market. On average, their compensation is restricted to commission income rather than trading profits. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: G10.