Opacity in financial markets

Yuki Sato

doi:10.1093/rfs/hhu047

Opacity in financial markets

Yuki Sato

Faculty of Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper studies the implications of opacity in financial markets for investor behavior, asset prices, and welfare. Transparent funds (e.g., mutual funds) and opaque funds (e.g., hedge funds) trade transparent assets (e.g., plain-vanilla products) and opaque assets (e.g., structured products). Investors observe neither opaque funds' portfolios nor opaque assets' payoffs. Consistent with empirical observations, an "opacity price premium" arises: opaque assets trade at a premium over transparent ones despite identical payoffs. This accompanies endogenous market segmentation: transparent (opaque) funds trade only transparent (opaque) assets. The opacity price premium incentivizes financial engineers to render transparent assets opaque deliberately.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3502-3546
Number of pages	45
Journal	Review of Financial Studies
Volume	27
Issue number	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhu047
Publication status	Published - 2014 Dec 1

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Accounting
Finance
Economics and Econometrics

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AB - This paper studies the implications of opacity in financial markets for investor behavior, asset prices, and welfare. Transparent funds (e.g., mutual funds) and opaque funds (e.g., hedge funds) trade transparent assets (e.g., plain-vanilla products) and opaque assets (e.g., structured products). Investors observe neither opaque funds' portfolios nor opaque assets' payoffs. Consistent with empirical observations, an "opacity price premium" arises: opaque assets trade at a premium over transparent ones despite identical payoffs. This accompanies endogenous market segmentation: transparent (opaque) funds trade only transparent (opaque) assets. The opacity price premium incentivizes financial engineers to render transparent assets opaque deliberately.

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