Expected Issuance Fees and Market Liquidity
41 Pages Posted: 2 Oct 2017 Last revised: 12 Nov 2018
Date Written: November 12, 2018
Abstract
This paper studies the impact of expected issuance fees on market liquidity in the Euro-area government bond market. Investment banks have a dual role as primary dealer in the secondary market as well as competitor for lead manager in the primary market. Primary dealers have the incentive to increase liquidity due to competition for issuance fees because lead managers are selected based on their liquidity provision in the secondary market. We find that the expected issuance fee is significantly related to market liquidity. Issuance fee driven liquidity is especially strong for countries with high funding needs, in periods of high uncertainty, and for bonds with high search costs.
Keywords: sovereign bonds; market microstructure; market liquidity; issuance fee
JEL Classification: G12; G18; G24
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation