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Journal of Finance Vol. 51 No. 2 1996

Transparency and Liquidity: A Comparison of Auction and Dealer Markets with Informed Trading

Marco Pagano; Ailsa Röell1,2,3,4,5

1 Center for Economic and Policy Research · 2 Université Libre de Bruxelles · 3 Agricultural Marketing Service · 4 Stockholm School of Economics · 5 London Business School

Abstract

Trading systems differ in their degree of transparency, here defined as the extent to which market makers can observe the size and direction of the current order flow. We investigate whether greater transparency enhances market liquidity by reducing the opportunities for taking advantage of uninformed participants. We compare the price formation process in several stylized trading systems with different degrees of transparency: various types of auction markets and a stylized dealer market. We find that greater transparency generates lower trading costs for uninformed traders on average, although not necessarily for every size of trade.

DOI
10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb02695.x
Volume
51
Issue
2
Pages
579-611
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

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