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Journal of Financial Intermediation Vol. 18 No. 1 2009

Inference, arbitrage, and asset price volatility

Tobias Adrian

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Abstract

Does the presence of arbitrageurs decrease equilibrium asset price volatility? I study an economy with arbitrageurs, informed investors, and noise traders. Arbitrageurs face a trade-off between “inference” and “arbitrage”: they would like to buy assets in response to temporary price declines—the arbitrage effect—but sell when prices decline permanently—the inference effect. In equilibrium, the presence of arbitrageurs increases volatility when the inference effect dominates the arbitrage effect. From a technical point of view, the paper offers closed form solutions to a dynamic equilibrium model with asymmetric information and non-Gaussian priors.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfi.2008.06.001
Volume
18
Issue
1
Pages
49-64
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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