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The recent integration of digital technology and financial services has given rise to the newly emerging modality of digital finance. However, does digital finance improve the efficiency of financial services while influencing the investment behavior of brick-andmortar businesses? With the help of the data about Chinese listed companies, this paper uses multiple regression analysis, instrumental variables, and other methods to empirically test whether and how digital finance affects the financial asset allocation decisions of brick-and-mortar enterprises. The findings suggest that digital finance has a galvanizing effect on financial asset allocation. However, this effect mainly stems from the fact that firms allocate more illiquid financial assets and has a dampening effect on liquid financial assets. Path analysis shows that easing financing constraints is a causal pathway through which digital finance dampens firms’ liquid financial asset allocation. Moreover, rising risk exposure levels partially mediate the stimulus of digital finance, motivating firms to allocate illiquid financial assets. This paper contributes to the research on the economic consequences of digital finance and provides policy recommendations on how digital finance can better serve the real economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the dynamic sphere of financial markets, hedge funds have emerged as a critical force, navigating through volatility with advanced risk management techniques yet grappling with the challenges posed by illiquid assets. This study aims to transcend traditional option pricing models, which struggle under the complexities of hedge fund investments, by exploring the applicability of machine learning in financial risk management. Leveraging Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) cells, the research introduces a model-free, data-driven approach for discrete-time hedging problems. Through a comparative analysis of simulated data and the implementation of LSTM architectures, the paper elucidates the potential of these machine learning techniques to enhance the precision of risk assessments and decision-making processes in hedge fund investments. The findings reveal that DNNs and LSTMs offer significant advancements over conventional models, effectively capturing long-term dependencies and complex patterns within financial time series data. Consequently, the study underscores the transformative impact of machine learning on the methodologies employed in financial risk management, proposing a novel paradigm that promises to mitigate the intricacies of hedging illiquid assets. This research not only contributes to the academic discourse but also paves the way for the development of more adaptive and resilient investment strategies in the face of market uncertainties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a stochastic economy with uninsurable endowment risk, we establish a condition under which hyperbolic‐discounting consumers commit to a future consumption path using both illiquid assets and borrowing constraints as commitment devices. There is the possibility that a state‐dependent commitment can be adopted as an equilibrium consumption strategy. On a path leading to low future endowment, the current self can commit to its own optimal consumption path, which is undesirable for future selves. In contrast, along the path with a high future endowment, the current self cannot make a commitment and must accept a consumption allocation that future selves will revise. Thus, depending on what stochastic state will arise, people cannot fully utilize the available commitment devices in risky situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to demonstrate and measure the impact of liquidity shocks on a bank's solvency, especially when the bank does not hold sufficient liquid assets. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed model is an extension of Merton's (1974) model. It assesses the bank's probability of default over one or two (short) periods relative to liquidity shocks. The shock scenarios are materialised by different net demands for the withdrawal of funds (NDWF) and may lead the bank to sell illiquid assets at a depreciated value. We consider the possibility of second-round effects at the beginning of the second period by introducing the probability of their occurrence. This probability depends on the proportion of illiquid assets put up for sale following the initial shock in different dependency scenarios. Findings: We observe a positive relationship between the initial NDWF and the bank's probability of default (particularly over the second period, which is conditional on the second-round effects). However, this relationship is not linear, and a significant proportion of liquid assets makes it possible to attenuate or even eliminate the effects of shock scenarios on bank solvency. Practical implications: The proposed model enables banks to determine the necessary level of liquid assets, allowing them to resist (i.e. remain solvent) different liquidity shock scenarios for both periods (including eventual second-round effects) under the assumptions considered. Therefore, it can contribute to complementing or improving current internal liquidity adequacy assessment processes (ILAAPs). Originality/value: The proposed microprudential approach consists of measuring the impact of liquidity risk on a bank's solvency, complementing the current prudential framework in which these two topics are treated separately. It also complements the existing literature, in which the impact of liquidity risk on solvency risk has not been sufficiently studied. Finally, our model allows banks to manage liquidity using a solvency approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use stochastic dynamic programming to design and solve an extended structural setting for which the illiquidity of the firm's assets under liquidation is interpreted as an intangible corporate security. This asset tends to reduce bond values, augment yield spreads, and, thus, partially explain the credit-spread puzzle. To assess our construction, we provide a sensitivity analysis of the values of corporate securities with respect to the illiquidity parameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyze the joint design of capital requirements and fair value reporting rules for financial institutions with illiquid assets. I specifically examine how prudential regulation aimed at solving agency problems affects financial institutions' incentives to use Level 2 versus Level 3 fair value reporting, as well as financial stability. Crucially, Level 3 reporting allows financial institutions to use their private information, whereas Level 2 fair values are only measured with public information. Interestingly, my analysis shows regulators may leave to financial institutions the discretion to report illiquid assets at Level 2 or Level 3. Financial institutions then report at Level 3 only if they have good private information about the assets' quality. Moreover, prudential rules that only rely on Level 2 fair values may be efficient at solving agency problems within financial institutions but may also decrease financial stability. By contrast, prudential rules that leave to financial institutions the discretion to report illiquid assets at Level 2 or Level 3 while relaxing capital requirements may increase financial stability. This paper was accepted by Suraj Srinivasan, accounting. Funding: This work was supported by the H2020 European Research Council [Grant 669217]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4692. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) continue to invade financial markets. Whether through partnerships between financial institutions and tech firms or through in-house initiatives at some of the nation's largest banks, blockchain-based products, services, and transactional structures are a major point of interest. In a recent work by Steven Schwarcz, the growing NFT market is analyzed using the traditional tools of structured finance. Creating a new conceptual model called non-cash-flow monetizations, Schwarcz reveals the risks to investors and markets if the tokenization of nontraditional and largely illiquid assets proliferates. Having identified the potential harms, he offers a package of regulatory solutions grounded in public law frameworks, which might mitigate, though not completely eliminate, these potential downsides. In this Response, we review Schwarcz's article and highlight how its insights advance the understanding of novel blockchain-based transactions and their disruption of the existing financial landscape. Additionally, we provide an analysis of the private law dimension of non-cash-flow monetizations--a perspective we believe is absent from much of the public discourse and relevant academic literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we discuss the concept of the cost‐of‐capital (CoC) rate for an insurance company as an equilibrium in the economic triangle of policyholders, shareholders, and the regulator. This provides a possible rationalization and an economic foundation for a quantity that is widely used in practice but whose value is typically neither technically nor economically well justified. We show how it can be well founded in such a triangular equilibrium. Under a simple one‐period model and a valuation procedure of a two‐price economy for illiquid assets we provide a corresponding economic‐theoretical quantification for the CoC rate. The resulting rates are illustrated by a number of concrete numerical examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate the BTC price time-series (17 August 2010–27 June 2021) and show that the 2017 pricing episode is not unique. We describe at least ten new events, which occurred since 2010–2011 and span more than five orders of price magnitudes ($US 1 –$US 60k). We find that those events have a similar duration of approx. 50–100 days. Although we are not able to predict times of a price peak, we however succeed to approximate the BTC price evolution using a function that is similar to a Fibonacci sequence. Finally, we complete a comparison with other types of financial instruments (equities, currencies, gold) which suggests that BTC may be classified as an illiquid asset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the problem of pricing European options when the underlying asset is not perfectly liquid. A liquidity discounting factor as a function of market-wide liquidity governed by a mean-reverting stochastic process and the sensitivity of the underlying price to market-wide liquidity is firstly introduced, so that the impact of liquidity on the underlying asset can be captured by the option pricing model. The characteristic function is analytically worked out using the Feynman–Kac theorem and a closed-form pricing formula for European options is successfully derived thereafter. Through numerical experiments, the accuracy of the newly derived formula is verified, and the significance of incorporating liquidity risk into option pricing is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supply chain finance (SCF) has attracted considerable attention being an innovative business model that allows firms, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to convert illiquid assets into cash without incurring additional liabilities. However, its effects on SME performance and risk have been insufficiently studied. The competitiveness of SMEs depends on performance enhancement and risk mitigation. Thus, this study constructs a scaled-decile rank transformation of account receivable turnover to gauge the degree to which a supplier implements SCF, thereby examining the relationship between SCF, performance, and risk. We collect data on 4,679 SMEs from the Chinese manufacturing sector. Thereafter, hierarchical linear regression, a complex form of multiple linear regression analysis, is employed to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that an SME's SCF adoption positively impacts its performance but negatively impacts its risk. To further explore cross-sectional variability, we investigated the buyer-supplier relationship's moderating role. Results show that an increase in customer concentration strengthens both the positive effects of SCF on performance and the negative effects of SCF on risk. Overall, our study contributes to the literature on the interface of operations and finance in supply chains by exploring the multiple facets of SCF adoption and highlighting the moderating role of buyer-supplier relationship in SCF and SME competitiveness. Finally, we provide managerial implications for SMEs and financial service providers by validating the value of SCF implementation and the buyer-supplier relationship management in forging competitive advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Studying the dynamics of deposits is important for three reasons: first, it serves as an important component of liquidity stress testing; second, it is crucial to asset-liability management exercises and the allocation between liquid and illiquid assets; third, it is the support for a Liquidity at Risk methodology. Current models are based on AR (1) processes that often underestimate liquidity risk. Thus, a bank relying on those models may face failure in an event of crisis. We propose an alternative approach for modeling deposits, using panel data and a momentum term. The model enables the simulation of a variety of deposit trajectories, including episodes of financial distress, showing much higher drawdowns and realistic liquidity at risk estimates, as well as density plots that present a wide range of possible values, corresponding to booms and financial crises. Therefore, this methodology is more suitable for liquidity management at banks, as well as for conducting liquidity stress tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores inflows and outflows patterns in retail equity mutual funds related to past and future performance derived from detailed monthly security-level holdings of funds in the Czech Republic. We find that retail investors become sensitive to bad performance in times of aggregate illiquidity and while investing in funds that hold more illiquid assets. Moreover, we document that when facing illiquidity and deteriorating performance, under-performing equity investing funds experience lower investor purchases and a larger share of redemption requests. We observe similar investor behaviour in periods when retail investors face constraints on their disposable income. • Fund flow–performance is analyzed using detailed supervisory data. • Fund inflows and outflows react more to good performance than to bad performance. • Retail equity fund investors react to bad performance during illiquid periods. • Fund flows respond to changing income constraints of retail investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the default probabilities in infrastructure projects. For that, we analyze the exposure of the lenders to a state of default. This application is made by assuming the debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) dynamic itself and the payment profile determined by the available cash flow of the project, where these are stochastically modeled following the same assumptions of the valuation theory of options developed by Black and Scholes (1973) and Merton (1973). In this way, through the adaptation of structural models developed for illiquid assets, as an extension of the credit risk models of Merton (1974) and KMV of Moody's, the probability, exposure and loss components of the lenders are analyzed in scenarios of default. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a quantitative heterogeneous agents macro-housing model and detailed microdata, this paper studies the drivers of the 2006–2011 housing bust, its spillovers to consumption and the credit market, and the ability of mortgage rate interventions to accelerate the recovery. The model features tenure choice between owning and renting, rich portfolio choice, long-term defaultable mortgages, and endogenously illiquid housing from search frictions. The equilibrium analysis and empirical evidence suggest that the deterioration in house prices and liquidity, transmitted to consumption via balance sheets that vary in composition and depth, is central to explaining the observed aggregate and cross-sectional patterns. (JEL E23, E32, E44, G21, R31) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use experimental methods to evaluate a simplified interbank market. The design is a laboratory adaptation of the analysis of interbank market fragility by Allen and Gale (J Eur Econ Assoc 2:1015–1048), and features symmetric banks who allocate deposit endowments between cash and illiquid assets prior to the incidence of a shock. Following the shock liquidity-deficient banks trade assets for cash. Treatments include variations in the shock type, as well as alterations in the range of permissible asset prices. Consistent with Allen and Gale, we find that while interbank trading substantially increases investment activity, the markets are frequently characterized by price variability and a stochastic distribution of investment outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of shadow banking on optimal liquidity regulation in a Diamond–Dybvig maturity-mismatch environment. In this economy, a pecuniary externality arising out of the banks' access to private retrade renders competitive equilibrium inefficient. A tax on illiquid assets and a subsidy to the liquid asset similar to the payment of interest on reserves (IOR) constitute an optimal liquidity regulation policy. Shadow banking gives banks an outside option allowing them to escape regulation at the cost of forgoing access to the government safety net. We derive two implications of shadow banking for optimal liquidity regulation policy. First, optimal policy must implement a macroprudential cap on illiquid-asset prices that binds only when the return on illiquid assets is high. Second, optimal policy must implement a fire sale of illiquid assets when high demand for liquidity is anticipated. We show how these features can be implemented by adjusting the IOR rate and the illiquid-asset tax rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Households face large income uncertainty that varies substantially over the business cycle. We examine the macroeconomic consequences of these variations in a model with incomplete markets, liquid and illiquid assets, and a nominal rigidity. Heightened uncertainty depresses aggregate demand as households respond by hoarding liquid "paper" assets for precautionary motives, thereby reducing both illiquid physical investment and consumption demand. We document the empirical response of portfolio liquidity and aggregate activity to surprise changes in idiosyncratic income uncertainty and find both to be quantitatively in line with our model. The welfare consequences of uncertainty shocks and of the policy response thereto depend crucially on a household's asset position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prove that in competitive market economies with no insurance for idiosyncratic risks, agents will always overinvest in illiquid long-term assets and underinvest in short-term liquid assets. We take as our setting the seminal model of Diamond and Dybvig (J Polit Econ 91(3):401-419, 1983), who first posed the question in a tractable model. We reach such a simple conclusion under mild conditions because we stick to the basic competitive market framework, avoiding the banks and intermediaries that Diamond and Dybvig (1983) and others introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management of a portfolio that includes an illiquid asset is an important problem of modern mathematical finance. One of the ways to model illiquidity among others is to build an optimization problem and assume that one of the assets in a portfolio cannot be sold until a certain finite, infinite or random moment of time. This approach arises a certain amount of models that are actively studied at the moment. Working in the Merton's optimal consumption framework with continuous time we consider an optimization problem for a portfolio with an illiquid, a risky and a risk-free asset. Our goal in this paper is to carry out a complete Lie group analysis of PDEs describing value function and investment and consumption strategies for a portfolio with an illiquid asset that is sold in an exogenous random moment of time with a prescribed liquidation time distribution. The problem of such type leads to three dimensional nonlinear Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) equations. Such equations are not only tedious for analytical methods but are also quite challenging form a numeric point of view. To reduce the three-dimensional problem to a two-dimensional one or even to an ODE one usually uses some substitutions, yet the methods used to find such substitutions are rarely discussed by the authors. We find the admitted Lie algebra for a broad class of liquidation time distributions in cases of HARA and log utility functions and formulate corresponding theorems for all these cases. We use found Lie algebras to obtain reductions of the studied equations. Several of similar substitutions were used in other papers before whereas others are new to our knowledge. This method gives us the possibility to provide a complete set of non-equivalent substitutions and reduced equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the cyclicality of bank liquidity creation. Since liquidity creation is a major economic function of banks, their liquidity creation behavior may amplify business cycle fluctuations. Using the methodology of Berger and Bouwman (2009) to compute liquidity creation measures, we analyze the relation between GDP growth and liquidity creation of Russian banks from 2004 to 2015. Detailed quarterly data on a very large sample of banks and coexistence of different bank ownership types (state-owned, domestic private and foreign banks), makes Russia an ideal natural laboratory for study of cyclicality of liquidity creation for banks. We find that liquidity creation of banks is procyclical. We show that the liquidity creation behavior of state-owned banks and foreign banks is similar to that of domestic private banks in terms of procyclicality. We further find that the magnitude of procyclicality is higher for liquidity creation than for lending. Thus, while ownership of banks does not influence the liquidity creation behavior of banks, such behavior can amplify business cycle fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credit and liquidity shocks represent main channels of financial contagion for interbank lending markets. On one hand, banks face potential losses whenever their counterparties are under distress and thus unable to fulfill their obligations. On the other hand, solvency constraints may force banks to recover lost fundings by selling their illiquid assets, resulting in effective losses in the presence of fire sales—that is, when funding shortcomings are widespread over the market. Because of the complex structure of the network of interbank exposures, these losses reverberate among banks and eventually get amplified, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the whole financial system. Inspired by the recently proposed Debt Rank, in this work we define a systemic risk metric that estimates the potential amplification of losses in interbank markets accounting for both credit and liquidity contagion channels: the Debt-Solvency Rank. We implement this framework on a dataset of 183 European banks that were publicly traded between 2004 and 2013, showing indeed that liquidity spillovers substantially increase systemic risk, and thus cannot be neglected in stress-test scenarios. We also provide additional evidence that the interbank market was extremely fragile up to the global financial crisis, becoming slightly more robust only afterwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to explore the effects of illiquidity on portfolio weight and return dynamics.Design/methodology/approach Using a novel continuous-time framework, the paper makes two key contributions to the literature on asset pricing and illiquidity. The first is to study the effects of illiquidity on portfolio weight dynamics. The second contribution is to analyze how illiquidity affects the risk/return dynamics of a portfolio.Findings The numerical results highlight that investors should be prepared for potentially large and skewed variations in portfolio weights and can be away from optimal diversification for a long time when adding illiquid assets to a portfolio. Additionally, the paper shows that illiquidity increases portfolio risk. Interestingly, this effect gets more pronounced when the return correlation between the illiquid and liquid asset is low. Thus, there is a correlation effect in the sense that illiquidity costs, as measured by the increase in overall portfolio risk, are inversely related to the return correlation of the assets.Originality/value This is the first paper that highlights that the increase in portfolio risk caused by illiquidity is inversely related to the return correlation between the liquid and illiquid assets. This important economic result contrasts with the widely used argument that the benefit of adding illiquid (alternative) assets to a portfolio is their low correlation with (traditional) traded assets. The results imply that the benefits of adding illiquid assets to a portfolio can be much lower than typically perceived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the pattern of investment by Australian defined-contribution superannuation funds in illiquid assets, using a unique but confidential database. Not-for-profit funds allocate more of their portfolios to illiquid assets, on average, than retail funds. Their allocations reflect fund size, net cash inflows and member age - factors relevant to a fund's liquidity requirements. Furthermore, the allocations reflect the extent of the fund's in-house investment management. In contrast, there is no clear relationship between these factors and allocations by retail funds. Funds with more illiquid investments experience investment returns that are commensurate with the non-diversifiable risk these assets contribute to their overall portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the mutual fund portfolios and their reliance on illiquid securities with a particular focus on regulatory regimes by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It offers information on mutual funds, 1940 Act regulations, money market mutual funds, alternative mutual funds, and initiatives announced by SEC and their impact on retail investors.

Although the direct effect of lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities is to forestall the default of financial firms that lose funding liquidity, an indirect effect is to allow these firms to minimize deleveraging sales of illiquid assets. This unintended consequence of LOLR facilities manifests itself as excess illiquid leverage in the financial sector, can make future liquidity shortfalls more likely, and can lead to an increase in default risks. Furthermore, this increase in default risk can occur despite the fact that the combination of LOLR facilities and reduced asset sales raises the prices of illiquid assets. The behavior of U.S. broker-dealers during the crisis of 2007-09 is consistent with this unintended consequence. In particular, given the Federal Reserve's LOLR facilities, broker-dealers could afford to try to wait out the crisis. Although they did reduce traditional measures of leverage to varying degrees, they failed to reduce sufficiently their illiquid leverage, which contributed to their failures or near failures. Several mechanisms to address this unintended consequence of LOLR facilities are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a model of optimal allocation to liquid and illiquid assets, where illiquidity risk results from the restriction that an asset cannot be traded for intervals of uncertain duration. Illiquidity risk leads to increased and state-dependent risk aversion and reduces the allocation to both liquid and illiquid risky assets. Uncertainty about the length of the illiquidity interval, as opposed to a deterministic nontrading interval, is a primary determinant of the cost of illiquidity. We allow market liquidity to vary from "normal" periods, when all assets are fully liquid, to "illiquidity crises," when some assets can only be traded infrequently. The possibility of a liquidity crisis leads to limited arbitrage in normal times. Investors are willing to forgo 2% of their wealth to hedge against illiquidity crises occurring once every 10 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilizes the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine the relationship between financial literacy, conscientiousness, and asset accumulation among young adults. Findings indicate that both conscientiousness and financial literacy are consistent predictors of asset accumulation among young Americans. A one-standard-deviation increase in conscientiousness is correlated with a 40% increase in net worth, a 53% increase in illiquid asset holdings, and a 33% increase in liquid asset holdings. A one-standard-deviation increase in financial literacy is correlated with a 60% increase in illiquid asset holdings and a 30% increase in liquid asset holdings. Financial literacy moderates the effect of conscientiousness on net worth. These findings suggest that conscientiousness and financial literacy are important factors and that policies and programming with a dual emphasis on increasing conscientiousness and financial literacy are likely to have a positive impact on consumer savings and asset-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the financial crisis securitization was commonly considered an efficient way of replacing illiquid assets with liquid securities (ABS), in which the risk was supposed to be adequately compensated by the tranching techniques. However, with the emergence of the crisis investors became more risk aversive and reluctant to incur ABS due to the rapidly deteriorating quality of the underlying assets caused by poor macroeconomic fundamentals. The limited adverse effects of the poor collateral performance is the main reason why chances for recovery of the ABS market in the EU are estimated more highly than in the USA. The analysis indicates that, driven by the ECB repo operations, the securitization market has almost lost the pre-crisis motives behind the issuance of ABS. Banks' attitudes toward securitization as a refinancing tool and a mechanism to extract additional profit underwent a shift. As the findings of the article suggest, after the crisis securitization is widely seen by banks as a liquidity tool within the frame of repo deals with the ECB, and to a lesser extent as a refinancing tool. Market regulation contributed considerably to this shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the principal determinants of an asset's return is its liquidity - the ease with which the asset can be bought and sold. Liquid assets yield a lower return than do otherwise comparable illiquid assets. This Article demonstrates that an income tax alters the tradeoff between asset liquidity and yield because: (1) high yields from illiquid assets are taxed; (2) imputed transaction services income from liquidity is untaxed; and (3) illiquidity costs are only sometimes deductible. As a result, assets have more liquidity and the price of liquidity in terms of yield is higher than it would be in the absence of an income tax. These distortions foster an excessively large financial sector, which exists in large part to create (tax-favored) liquidity. The tax wedge between liquidity and yield also creates clientele effects, in which low-rate taxpayers, such as nonprofit institutions, hold illiquid assets regardless of their liquidity needs. The liquidity/yield tax distortion also offers a new perspective on fundamental questions in federal income tax, such as the desirability of the realization requirement, preferential capital gains tax rates, and corporate taxation. These elements of the income tax mitigate or even negate the pro-liquidity tax bias identified in this Article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The financial crisis of 2007-2009 left elite university endowments with 30% less value, causing these universities to respond with dramatic budgetary restructuring. While endowments had received probing national and congressional attention in the months prior to the crisis, that attention largely gave way to the conventional view that universities were no longer able to meet their budgetary needs because of these endowment losses. This wisdom took hold despite the fact that elite universities still sat atop multibillion dollar endowments designed, at least in theory, to provide a cushion in times of financial distress. This Note explores this puzzle by looking at the legal and financial restrictions placed on endowment spending. The Note finds that, arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, the law does not meaningfully restrict elite universities in their spending, largely because the law does not apply to unrestricted funds that compose almost half of elite universities' endowments. A somewhat stronger explanation is financial: elite university investment in illiquid assets means that universities cannot cash out endowments to stabilize their budgets because of an inability to access those investments. I argue, however, that the financial explanation is still inadequate because illiquid investments likely accounted for a minority of each elite university's endowment. The Note articulates a different theory of endowment value: universities use their endowments as a symbol of prestige and a point of competition between peer institutions. The cultural value of university endowments means that universities will strive to avoid endowment liquidation to the fullest extent possible, even, counterintuitively, in times when they need their endowment funds most of all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A problem that often arises in applied finance is one where decision-makers need to choose a value for some parameter that will affect the cash flows between two parties involved in the operation of an illiquid asset. Because the values of the cash flows also depend on various unobservable parameters, identifying the value of the policy parameter that achieves the desired allocation between the parties is no simple task, often resulting in disputes and the invocation of ad hoc approaches. We show how this problem can be solved using an extension of the well-known ‘implied volatility’ technique from option pricing, and apply it to the determination of equilibrium rental rates on ground leases of commercial land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We consider impulse control problems in finite horizon for diffusions with decision lag and execution delay. The new feature is that our general framework deals with the important case when several consecutive orders may be decided before the effective execution of the first one. This is motivated by financial applications in the trading of illiquid assets such as hedge funds. We show that the value functions for such control problems satisfy a suitable version of dynamic programming principle in finite dimension, which takes into account the past dependence of state process through the pending orders. The corresponding Bellman partial differential equations (PDE) system is derived, and exhibit some peculiarities on the coupled equations, domains and boundary conditions. We prove a unique characterization of the value functions to this nonstandard PDE system by means of viscosity solutions. We then provide an algorithm to find the value functions and the optimal control. This easily implementable algorithm involves backward and forward iterations on the domains and the value functions, which appear in turn as original arguments in the proofs for the boundary conditions and uniqueness results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Asset securitization -- transforming illiquid assets into tradable securities -- is a large and growing market, even rivaling the corporate debt market in size. While the underlying assets can be very different -- ranging from song royalties to home mortgages -- most asset-backed securities nevertheless share some distinctive features. In "The Economics of Asset Securitization," Ronel Elul explains why asset-backed securities exist and discusses some reasons for their common structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]