Market Freeze and Recovery: Trading Dynamics under Optimal Intervention by a Market-Maker-of-Last-Resort

We study the trading dynamics in a distressed asset market with search frictions. When trading of a financial asset ceases due to an adverse selection problem, a large player can resurrect the market by buying up bad assets which involves assuming financial losses. The player can, however, delay the intervention: a mere announcement today of intervening at a later point in time can cause markets to function again. This announcement effect gives rise to a trade-off between the size and the timing of the intervention. The optimal intervention involves balancing the financial losses from the intervention and the social cost of illiquid markets. If the losses are small and a market is deemed important, it is optimal to ensure that the market functions continuously. In this case, there is a fixed cost associated with intervention delay, making it optimal to intervene as early as possible at the minimum size. As losses increase and the importance of the market declines, the intervention is optimally delayed and it can be optimal to rely on the announcement effect by increasing the size of the intervention. Furthermore, our finding highlights the importance of search friction in the formation of market distress, the determination of policy announcement effect, and the optimal design of intervention. ∗The views expressed in this paper are not necessarily the views of the Bank of Canada.