If efficient asset prices follow continuous semi-martingales and are perfectly observed, their quadratic variation can be measured accurately from the sum of a large number of squared returns sampled over very finely spaced intervals, i.e., realized variance (Andersen et al., 2003, and Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard, 2002). With the emergence of high-frequency data, it seems that we should be a...

This special issue of the Journal of Financial Economics includes six articles that analyze the market microstructure of Nasdaq in various ways. The question of the costs of trading on Nasdaq has become contentious in both the academic and legal/regulatory arenas since the Christie and Schultz (1994) article first noted that many actively traded Nasdaq stocks were almost never quoted on odd eig...

The Hansen-Lunde (HL) research program is generally first-rate, displaying a rare blend of theoretical prowess and applied sense. The present paper is no exception. In a major theoretical advance, HL allow for correlation between microstructure (MS) noise and latent price. (I prefer “latent price” to terms such as “efficient price” or “true price,” which carry lots of excess baggage.) In a para...

In a typical IPO game with first-price auctions, we argue that risk-averse investors always underbid in equilibrium because of subjective interpretations of the firm’ communication about its actual value and resulting risk aversion about the likelihood of facing investors with higher valuations. We show that the noisier the investors’ inferences of the firm’ value (in the sense of first-order s...

he introduction of Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) in the United States in 1997 offered multiple potential benefits. First, the development was intended to offer investors a security that would enable them to hedge inflation. Second, by taking on the risk of inflation, the U.S. Treasury Department would not have to pay an inflation risk premium on its securities, thereby lowering...

We analyze exchange-rate management by the central bank when it makes the FX market for the sake of social-welfare objectives. It is assumed that markets are incomplete, so that agents are exposed to exchange-rate volatility against which they cannot fully hedge. It follows that the central bank may provide insurance by smoothing the exchange rate. However, smoothing the exchange rate also crea...

Understanding and measuring determinants of bid-ask spreads is decisive to clarifying the efficiency of the microstructure of any exchange and general market liquidity. This paper examines the market microstructure of a low liquidity, market maker driven option market, the relations to the underlying securities’ market and the challenges of pricing liquidity. Comparing empirical results with pr...

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This paper studies the market microstructure of pre-industrial Europe. In particular we investigate the institution of the broker in markets and fairs, and develop a unique data set of approximately 1100 sets of brokerage rules in 42 merchant towns in Central and Western Europe from the late 13th to the end of the 17th century. We show that towns implemented brokerage as an e¢ cient matchmaking...