Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/86720 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper No. 11-029/2/DSF11
Publisher: 
Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam and Rotterdam
Abstract: 
This paper investigates empirically the illiquidity of majority blocks of shares in the context of a search model of block trades. The search model incorporates two aspects of illiquidity, or search frictions. First, upon a liquidity shock, the incumbent blockholders may be forced to sell to a less efficient buyer. Second, a block liquidity sale may occur at a fire sale price. We conduct a structural estimation of the model using data on majority block trades in the U.S. The structural estimation is particularly useful in this exercise as it allows us to evaluate the counterfactual price that would result absent liquidity shocks. Our results help shed light into the size of the marketability discount, the control discount and an illiquidity-spillover discount we identify, and on the determinants of aggregate liquidity.
Subjects: 
Block pricing
marketability discount
liquidity
control transactions
search frictions
structural estimation
JEL: 
G34
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
592.49 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.