Publication

Activism, Strategic Trading, and Liquidity

Pierre Collin Dufresne, Tao Li
2018
Journal paper
Abstract

We analyze dynamic trading by an activist investor who can expend costly effort to affect firm value. We obtain the equilibrium in closed form for a general activism technology, including both binary and continuous outcomes. Variation in parameters can produce either positive or negative relations between market liquidity and economic efficiency, depending on the activism technology and model parameters. Two results that contrast with the previous literature are that (a) the relation between market liquidity and economic efficiency is independent of the activist's initial stake for a broad set of activism technologies and (b) an increase in noise trading can reduce market liquidity, because it increases uncertainty about the activist's trades (the activist trades in the opposite direction of noise traders) and thereby increases information asymmetry about the activist's intentions.

About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related concepts (36)
Activism
Activism (or advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range from mandate building in a community (including writing letters to newspapers), petitioning elected officials, running or contributing to a political campaign, preferential patronage (or boycott) of businesses, and demonstrative forms of activism like rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, or hunger strikes.
Market liquidity
In business, economics or investment, market liquidity is a market's feature whereby an individual or firm can quickly purchase or sell an asset without causing a drastic change in the asset's price. Liquidity involves the trade-off between the price at which an asset can be sold, and how quickly it can be sold. In a liquid market, the trade-off is mild: one can sell quickly without having to accept a significantly lower price. In a relatively illiquid market, an asset must be discounted in order to sell quickly.
Economic efficiency
In microeconomics, economic efficiency, depending on the context, is usually one of the following two related concepts: Allocative or Pareto efficiency: any changes made to assist one person would harm another. Productive efficiency: no additional output of one good can be obtained without decreasing the output of another good, and production proceeds at the lowest possible average total cost. These definitions are not equivalent: a market or other economic system may be allocatively but not productively efficient, or productively but not allocatively efficient.
Show more
Related publications (34)

Informational frictions in financial markets

Erik Hapnes

This thesis consists of three chapters on informational frictions in financial markets. The chapters analyze problems related to markets' ability to guide real investment, and what drives liquidity. Both problems are important to ensure efficient resource ...
EPFL2021

In Via Accidit

Alexandre Blanc, Marco Bakker

To share an event that happened or could have happen on the road in relation to architecture or space in a wider sense. ...
MANSLAB2020

Insertion device for inserting deformable prosthesis into an eye

Diego Ghezzi, Charles-Henri Puncho Jérôme Vila

An insertion device (100; 100') for inserting a retinal prosthesis (200) into the eye of a patient comprises: a handle portion (1; 1') arranged to be grasped by a user of the insertion device (100; 100'), a cannula element (12; 12') arranged to be inserted ...
2020
Show more
Related MOOCs (7)
Advanced statistical physics
We explore statistical physics in both classical and open quantum systems. Additionally, we will cover probabilistic data analysis that is extremely useful in many applications.
Advanced statistical physics
We explore statistical physics in both classical and open quantum systems. Additionally, we will cover probabilistic data analysis that is extremely useful in many applications.
Plasma Physics: Introduction
Learn the basics of plasma, one of the fundamental states of matter, and the different types of models used to describe it, including fluid and kinetic.
Show more

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.