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The EU implemented the Market Stability Reserve (MSR) in response to the 2008 financial crisis to deal with short-term impacts of future shocks, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. We link a model that intertemporally optimizes the handling of banked allowances every five years with one that simulates the annual working of the EU ETS including the MSR with its potential cancelling. Neglecting the pandemic, 2.16 billion allowances are cancelled. Accounting for the pandemic, 0.28 billion additional allowances are cancelled if the European economy fully recovers by 2021, which even overcompensates the 2020 drop in CO2 emissions. Additional cancelling increases when the pandemic lasts longer, meaning that the MSR even outperforms its initial purpose.

Policy makers reformed the European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) to address low prices and price volatility. They reduced the cap and strengthened the Market Stability Reserve (MSR). The effectiveness of these reforms hinges on path dependency of emission and abatement technology. Conversely to pre-existing analysis, we observe that postponing allowance allocations through the MSR can be equally, if not more significant than cancellation. Additional stochastic analysis establishes that the MSR increases price volatility. These findings imply that the reforms gave reducing allowances too much attention, and managing their availability in response to shocks too little.

Because of their size, Institutional Investors have significant influence over financial systems. In this paper, I look at how institutional investors’ actions can significantly affect market stability. We first look at investment bank, Lehman Brothers and how its actions during the Great Recession rippled through the larger American and European financial system. We then follow Lehman by charting the various ways institutional investors can and do hold sway over a company and its decisions.

We consider the effect of adaptive model selection and regularization by agents on price volatility and market stability in a simple agent-based model of a financial market. The agents base their trading behavior on forecasts of future returns, which they update adaptively and asynchronously through a process of model selection, estimation, and prediction. The addition of model selection and regularization methods to the traders' learning algorithm is shown to reduce but not eliminate overfitting and resulting excess volatility. Our results suggest that even a high degree of attention to overfitting on the part of traders who are engaged in data mining is unlikely to entirely eliminate destabilizing speculation. They also accord well with the empirical ``sparse signals" and ``pockets of predictability" findings of Chinco, Clark-Joseph and Ye (2019) and Farmer, Schmidt and Timmermann (2019).

In response to recent reports by influential financial regulatory bodies the article aims, firstly, to outline the financial, operational and systemic risks affecting the stability of virtual asset trading platforms. It highlights risk management techniques which can be used to mitigate against them. Some of these risks are applicable to trading platforms in general and some are unique to blockchain technology. Secondly, it makes the case for international self-regulation by virtual asset trading platforms, and outlines the measures which platforms can adopt in order to build market stability and enhance client security. It argues that self-regulation can align platform and client interests, reduce systemic risk in the virtual assets market and act as a viable alternative to regulation from national or international bodies.

Noise traders are often thought to be detrimental to market stability, increasing volatility and the risk of bubbles and crashes. The effect of noise traders on the learning and development of informed traders, however, has received little attention. We consider a computational model of a derivatives market containing informed traders and noise traders with the former group having to learn to price the traded asset. We demonstrate that noise traders have a beneficial effect on market stability: an increase in the amount of noise traders makes the market more resilient to shocks. Noise traders by pushing the price from fundamentals create opportunities for learning, increasing the proportion of informed traders possessing high levels of trading skills in turn protecting the market.

The scenario of the banking sector is articulated by the theoretical background backed up by practical evidences relying on panel data of thirty-two (32) commercial banks for the period of 2006-2016. The study addressed the problem of endogeneity, heterokedasticity and auto-correlation by selecting the two-stage-least-square (2SLS) method in data analysis. In fact, the study explores its area of concentration in the banking sector and developed models based on bank risk, disclosures, and corporate governance in the developing country context. It is true that good governance can ensure bank transparency and market stability. The study revealed that banks disclosures and corporate governance have a significant effect on bank risk-taking behavior and also found a reciprocal effect in the case of disclosure model and governance model.

Cap-and-trade programs such as the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) expose firms to considerable risks, to which the firms can respond with hedging. We develop an intertemporal stochastic equilibrium model to analyze the implications of hedging by risk-averse firms. We show that the resulting time-varying risk premium depends on the size of the permit bank. Applying the model to the EU ETS, we find that hedging can lead to a U-shaped price path, because prices initially fall due to negative risk premiums and then rise as the hedging demand declines. The Market Stability Reserve (MSR) reduces the permit bank and thus, increases the hedging value of the permits. This offers an explanation for the recent price hike, but also implies that prices may decline in the future due to more negative risk premiums. In addition, we find higher permit cancellations through the MSR than previous analyses, which do not account for hedging.

This introduction to decentralization examines decentralization’s past, present, and future. By tracing the history of past and existing decentralized systems and by examining emerging decentralized technology solutions, the author highlights the trends that lead to higher levels of decentralization in commerce and society.

FinTech is a new part of the financial industry that is radically innovating the way financial services are built and offered. In this paper, we analyse FinTech characteristics, their activities and related risks, highlighting analogies and differences in the activities performed by the financial intermediaries and the financial markets that are subject to specific regulation. In general, the study underlines the opportunity to pursue an effective balance between the urge to stimulate innovation and competition in the financial markets to bring benefits to the customers, on the one hand, and the need to ensure market stability both at micro and macro-level, transparency and fairness towards customers, as well as the prevention of unlawful activities, on the other hand. Additionally, the paper provides an overview of the main strategies that incumbents are following in the new market conditions.

US Fed’s monetary policy tightening has induced capital outflows from emerging economies, inducing, coupled with internal problems, serious financial instability in the markets of Turkey and Argentina. Central banks have launched policies to arrest the plunge in the markets of developing countries. The achieved market stability may be short-lived, however.

Saudi Arabia has the largest stock market in the Gulf Region. Recently, it officially opened up to foreign investors in an effort to promote market stability and reduce volatility. In this study, we aim to explore the determinants that encourage foreign investors to invest in the Saudi stock market. The analysis shows that investors prefer to invest in privately owned firms and institutions with relatively higher levels of tangible assets while they disfavour firms that are government owned and have a high level of liquidity. This study investigates an issue that has not been previously addressed in this particular market; it also contributes to an understanding of foreign investors’ behaviours in emerging markets.

We estimate a generic agent-based model in which agents have heterogeneous beliefs about the future price to see to what extent behaviour differs across assets, and what this implies for market stability. We find evidence for behavioural heterogeneity for all asset classes, except for equities. Heterogeneity is especially pronounced for macro-economic variables. Agents update their beliefs frequently in financial markets, and only gradually in the case of macro-economic variables. Consequently, we find that the probability of behavioural bubbles is substantially higher for the macro-economic variables than for financial assets.

The discussion around the role of nonbanks and their impact on financial stability is a healthy development. However, the author believes the current debate is filled with a number of misconceptions and omissions that detract from the goals of enhancing market stability and economic growth called for in the Dodd Frank Act. Moreover, the lack of a consistent market framework that is publicly articulated by regulators limits the ability of investors and consumers to better understand the risks in nonbank business models. Regulators in the U.S. and other nations have been focused on the growth of nonbanks as an area of future risk. Regulators and investors need to be more careful in parsing the risks posed by different categories of nonbank entities. Investors, regulators and policy makers need to be more aware of the different types of business models in the nonbank universe and the types of risks they pose, and fashion public policy accordingly.

Instability in cap-and-trade markets, particularly with respect to permit price collapses, has been an area of concern for regulators. To that end, several policies, including hybrid price-quantity mechanisms and the newly introduced “market stability reserve” (MSR) systems, have been introduced and even implemented in some cases. I develop a stochastic dynamic model of a cap-and-trade system, parameterized to values relevant to the European Union׳s Emission Trading System (EU ETS) to analyze the performance of these policies aimed at adding stability to the system or at least at reducing perceived over-allocations of permits. Results suggest that adaptive-allocation mechanisms such as a price collar or MSR can reduce permit over-allocations and permit price volatility in a more cost-effective manner than simply reducing scheduled permit allocations. However, it is also found that the performance of these adaptive allocation policies, and in particular the MSR, are greatly affected by assumed discount rates and policy parameters.

Using an agent-based model of the limit order book, we explore how the levels of information available to participants, exchanges, and regulators can be used to improve our understanding of the stability and resiliency of a market. Ultimately, we want to know if electronic market data contains previously undetected information that could allow us to better assess market stability. Using data produced in the controlled environment of an agent-based model’s limit order book, we examine various resiliency indicators to determine their predictive capabilities. Most of the types of data created have traditionally been available either publicly or on a restricted basis to regulators and exchanges, but other types have never been collected. We confirmed our findings using actual order flow data with user identifications included from the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) and New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). Our findings strongly suggest that high-fidelity microstructure data in combination with price data can be used to define stability indicators capable of reliably signaling a high likelihood for an imminent flash crash event about one minute before it occurs.

We propose a continuous-time heterogeneous agent model consisting of fundamental, momentum, and contrarian traders to explain the significant time series momentum. We show that the market under-reacts in short-run and overreacts in long-run when momentum traders dominate the market, which provides profit opportunity for time series momentum strategies with short-time horizons and reversal with long-time horizons. We find momentum strategies with short horizons stabilise the market while the effect becomes opposite with longer horizons. The results provide an insight into the profitability of time series momentum documented in recent empirical studies.

The banking industry has gone through turbulent times in the last 30 years. From the Asian crisis of the 90s, through the inception of sophisticated financial instruments such as derivatives, the genesis of shadow banking, and culminating with the subprime disaster, market players and authorities have scrambled to understand and react to these dramatic changes. On this paper the variables involved in these changes are discussed, and a recommendation to the structure of the financial industry provided, to maintain market stability and competitiveness in this important segment of the economy.

Trading skills are highly rewarded in practice but largely ignored in theoretical models of financial markets. This paper demonstrates the importance of skills by examining their interaction with market fragmentation and market stability. We consider a computational model where traders’ abilities to accurately price assets are endogenous. In contrast to models that do not consider skills, we find that centralising markets can lead to higher price volatility and less resilience to shocks because it increases the equilibrium proportion of unskilled traders.

We investigate whether providers of news analytics affect the stock market. We exploit a unique identification strategy based on revisions between different product releases of a major provider of news analytics. We document a causal effect of news analytics on the market, irrespective of the informational content of the news. Coverage in news analytics speeds up the market reaction in terms of stock price response and trading volume, but temporarily increases illiquidity and can result in temporary price distortions that might increase volatility and reduce market stability. Furthermore, we document that traders learn dynamically about the precision of news analytics.

This paper looks at differences in the stability the Canadian and U.S. financial systems and provides an options framework for studying areas where financial regulations could enhance global market stability.

The Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation creates an “Orderly Liquidation Authority” (OLA) that shares many features in common with the Bankruptcy Code. This is easy to overlook because the legislation uses a language and employs a decision-maker (both borrowed from bank regulation) that will seem foreign to bankruptcy lawyers. Our task in this essay is to identify the core congruities between OLA and the Code. In doing so, we highlight important differences and assess both their constitutionality and policy objectives. We conclude with a few thoughts on the likelihood that OLA will contribute to market stability.

In this paper we study the influence of large traders in the stock market in the presence of a fringe of marginal “noise traders". We formulate a trade model relating stock price to the demand strategies of these traders who wish to maximize their payoffs. Using the Nash equilibrium concept we compute the optimal value functions for the large traders and study the stability of the state process (log price) under equilibrium strategies of the large traders. In the process, we propose two measures. The first one is to measure the big traders’ total faith on the market’s valuation (φ0 ) and the second one is to measure the big traders’ interaction between themselves (φ1 ). Furthermore, we provide numerical examples to illustrate the effect of the big traders’ interaction and their faith on the market’s valuation on the market stability. We also illustrate, with diagrams, the historical and instantaneous correlation among the value processes for these large traders to highlight certain interesting features that influence the market.

In this paper we study price competition, equilibrium market configurations and entry decisions when firms compete in vertically-differentiated markets producing complementary goods. We show that allowing firms to sell complementary goods may be welfare-enhancing and pro-competitive. In fact, such strategy favors the entry of new firms producing lower-quality components. Moreover, this strategy increases consumer surplus, even when firms sell the two complements as a bundle. Interestingly, notwithstanding the increase in competition, it is always optimal for firms to enter a complementary good market. By discouraging such practices, antitrust authorities may harm both consumers and low-quality firms, at the same time undermining market stability.

During the last few years minority shareholders have suffered many shocks. Their rights and options were compromised. New legal and regulatory initiatives have failed to establish stability and trust on the mechanisms and contracts that are essential for organizational and market stability. The paper cites the basic rights of minority shareholders and analyzes the feasibility of their protection and enforcement. Minority shareholders are, in essence, without any choices or the choices that they have to rely on are the will and faculty of the dominant group (managers in the case of the Anglo-Saxon countries and major shareholders in Continental Europe countries).

We study the impact of trader anonymity on trading behavior and price characteristics. Revealing the identity of informed traders allows the market to better disaggregate the source of orders, but does not guarantee more informative prices. When markets are less anonymous, informed traders protect their information by adopting "bluffing" strategies, e.g., buying overvalued assets. This behavior decreases the price impact of trading, even to the point where informed traders may in fact prefer to trade in less anonymous markets. We extend our analysis to consider implications for price efficiency, information production, and the effects of anonymizing events on market stability.

OPEC's stated mission is to promote the economic development and growth of its member states while minimizing volatility in the oil markets. But after a promising beginning many member states - economies have declined rather than prospered - a clear indication of OPEC's failure to meet their development goals. Thus, we ask if a resource cartel can achieve the joint goals of development and resource market stability. In a model in which oil producing countries choose whether to join an oil cartel or remain in the fringe, we find that, in a highly elastic oil market, a profit maximizing cartel is inconsistent with oil market stability in the face of demand shocks. Thus, it is inimical to macroeconomic stability, an essential requirement for long-lasting capital investment, and therefore economic development and growth. Consequently, it may not be optimal for an oil-exporting country that cares adequately about macroeconomic stability to join the cartel. But for a country where short-run considerations overwhelm long-run concerns, cartel membership may be the correct choice. Yet the oil rich are ultimately cursed by their excessive reliance on their resource wealth - current profligacy begets future decline.

This paper uses laboratory experiments to test alternative water market institutions designed to protect third party interests. The institutions tested include taxing mechanisms that raise revenue to compensate affected third parties and a market in which third parties actively participate. The results indicate that there are some important trade-offs in selecting a policy option. Active third party participation in the market is likely to result in free riding that may erode some or all of the efficiency gains, and may introduce volatility into the market. Taxing transfers and compensating third parties offers a promising balance of efficiency, equity and market stability.

The Colombian political economy during the upsurge of the economic cycle of 1975-80 attempted to curtail repercussions that affected coffee export's income distribution particularly as adjusting mechanisms contemplated to equilibrate the whole economy price level. From the conventional economic perspective the paper attempts to study some factors that affected not only market stability price level but exchange and income distribution rate with unquestionable consequences upon non-traditional exports income distribution. Some criticism is elevated about political preeminence of coffee's interest group that deprived entrepreneurial capacity on some other sectors and considerations were made to justify encouragement of some other dynamic ventures able to improve general level of competitiveness.

There has been considerable finger pointing since the Crash of 1987, much of it devoted to the tail wagging the dog idea. This concept may be typical of many that will influence regulators and exchanges as they decide what new measures to adopt to prevent another Crash. It is wrong, and it misses the point. Measures being considered include circuit breakers, closing the market, trading halts, price limits, restricting access, and position limits. This paper shows how ridiculous they are. Along the way, it provides a few laughs.