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Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 139 No. 2 2021

What’s wrong with Pittsburgh? Delegated investors and liquidity concentration

Andra C. Ghent

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

open access

Abstract

What makes an asset institutional quality? This paper proposes that one reason is the existing concentration of delegated investors in a market through a liquidity channel. Consistent with this intuition, it documents differences in investor composition across US cities and shows that delegated investors concentrate their investments in cities with higher turnover. It then estimates a search model showing how heterogeneity in liquidity preferences makes some markets more liquid, even when assets have identical cash flows. The paper provides evidence for clientele equilibria arising in frictional asset markets and suggests that a liquidity channel may explain divergent paths in city development.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfineco.2020.08.015
Volume
139
Issue
2
Pages
337-358
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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