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Article
Uncertainty and Liquidity in Corporate Bond Market
Applied Economics
  • Liang Guo
  • Donald Lien
  • Maggie Hao
  • Hongxian Zhang, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Abstract

We examine the uncertainty-liquidity connection in the corporate bond market. Using monthly corporate bond data from 2005 to 2010, we construct proxies for parameter uncertainty by using firm-level parameters generated from a structural model of corporate debt. We find that uncertainty about firm parameters decreases trading volume but increases bid-ask spreads and price bouncing in the cross-section and across time. In addition, the panel VAR results show that parameter uncertainty has negative forecasting power for future bond liquidity, with greater uncertainty in the current month leading to lower trading volume, higher bid-ask spreads and higher price fluctuations on subsequent months. We conclude that parameter uncertainty is one of the underlying factors giving rise to the high level of illiquidity in the corporate bond market.

Department(s)
Business and Information Technology
Keywords and Phrases
  • Capital market,
  • Debt,
  • Financial market,
  • Numerical model,
  • Price dynamics,
  • Uncertainty analysis,
  • Vector autoregression,
  • Bid-ask spreads,
  • Liquidity,
  • Parameter uncertainty,
  • Price reversal,
  • Trading volume
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2017 Taylor & Francis, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
10-1-2017
Publication Date
01 Oct 2017
Disciplines
Citation Information
Liang Guo, Donald Lien, Maggie Hao and Hongxian Zhang. "Uncertainty and Liquidity in Corporate Bond Market" Applied Economics Vol. 49 Iss. 47 (2017) p. 4760 - 4781 ISSN: 0003-6846
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/hongxian-zhang/3/