The stock market is a powerful tool for controlling corporations’ behaviour. But which is better, a highly liquid market or a number of large blockholders? This column argues in favour of liquidity. Evidence suggests that policymakers should not reduce stock liquidity through greater regulation. While the idea that liquidity encourages short-term trading – rather than long-term governance – sounds intuitive, deeper analysis shows that liquidity is beneficial because it encourages large shareholders to form in the first place, and allows shareholders to punish underperforming firms through selling their stake.

Will the new Basel rules make monetary policy less effective? This column looks at how banks responded to the introduction of the Dutch quantitative liquidity requirement. It concludes that a liquidity rule does influence lending rates and volumes in the interbank money market. These effects, however, are at least partially intended and the overall effect of a binding liquidity rule is still positive.

The global financial crisis has shown that neglecting liquidity risk comes at a substantial price. This column presents a new framework to run system-wide, balance sheet data–based liquidity stress tests. The liquidity framework includes a module to simulate the impact of bank-run type scenarios, a module to assess risks arising from maturity transformation and rollover risks, and a framework to link liquidity and solvency risks.

The shadow banking system is vast; but why did it arise? Some view it as regulatory arbitrage while others view it as the market fulfilling investors’ demand for ‘riskless’ assets. This column explains the issues and discusses policy options.

The global crisis ruthlessly exposed the weakness of the market for liquidity. This column suggests that banks should issue securities with a “Roll-Over Option Facility” that would allow banks to keep funds if there is turmoil in liquidity markets. It adds that these facilities would help reallocate liquidity risk outside the banking sector, thus reducing the probability and severity of a crisis.

Liquidity and default are inseparable. Liquidity problems fuel defaults and vice versa. This column discusses the shortcomings of current regulatory proposals to address liquidity and default. It says that regulators must address “systemic markets”, not just systemic institutions, and need informative measures of financial stability.

The recent credit crisis started as a credit shock and then rapidly promulgated in the form of market and funding illiquidity before inducing solvency problems at some financial institutions. This column presents empirical evidence mapping the transmission channels of the crisis.

Here, one of the world’s leading macroeconomists argues that the explosion of commodity prices is the result of a very real global financial storm associated with excess liquidity in several non-G7 countries and nourished by the low interest rates set by G7 central banks. The commodity price explosion is a harbinger of future inflation.

Information is at the heart of the recent liquidity crisis: Who bears risks? Who has losses? Who is insolvent? This column, which draws on the author’s recently published book, 'Information and Learning in Markets', explains why solving the crisis requires closing such information gaps.