A Framework to Model Bond Liquidity

Abstract: The liquidity of financial assets can be studied in various different ways. In this thesis, liquidity is defined as the cost and time required to liquidate a position. While the liquidity of highly traded financial instruments like stocks is typically determined by analyzing the order book, the lack of an order book for over-the-counter bond trading presents challenges for estimating bond liquidity. The objective of this thesis is to develop a framework for estimating the cost and time required to liquidate a bond position. To achieve this, we propose a theoretical order book model based on the order book of more actively traded instruments, and estimate the model parameters using bond transaction data. The volume available to trade in the theoretical order book was modelled as gamma distributed stochastic process. The distribution of the liquidation cost could thereafter be derived where the parameters were estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation. The liquidation time, or liquidity horizon, was then determined through the solution of an optimization problem. The proposed framework for estimating bond liquidity produced promising results. The estimated parameters of the gamma distributed stochastic process accurately captured the behavior of bond trading volumes, allowing for a reliable estimation of the distribution of liquidation costs. Additionally, the optimization problem used to determine the liquidity horizon produced reasonable estimates.