Our speaker will be Rüdiger Weber (Vienna University of Economics and Business).

He will give a talk on “Money in the right hands: the price effects of specialized demand” (joint with Aleksandra Rzeźnik).

Abstract: We study stock liquidity from a demand-based perspective in the context of mutual fund fire sales. Specifically, we show that active and specialized demand is a key determinant of fire sale price discounts. Only when there is a lack of specialized demand, as proxied by inflows to active, specialized funds, do we observe the marked price pressure effects recorded previously in the literature. Inflows to passive funds have little to no impact on price discounts, pointing to the importance of active mandates for price efficiency. Our findings are robust to using the exogenous variation in fire sale pressure due to the 2003 late trading scandal. Asset quality and adverse selection do not explain the result. Rather, our results suggest inefficient allocations induced by forced sales as an explanation for price pressure. This implies that fire-sale pressure in the absence of active specialized demand can be interpreted as a non-fundamental shock to prices.

The talk will take place on June 28, 2022 hybrid in room TC.2.03 at 12.00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

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