Market microstructure studies how prices actually form: the dynamics of limit order books, the economics of market making, price impact of large orders, and the information content of order flow. It is the layer where trading strategy meets market plumbing, and it matters to anyone whose backtest assumes fills at mid-price.
Two branches dominate this collection. The theoretical branch models order books with queueing theory and stochastic control — mathematically rich, but check whether the model’s assumptions (Poisson arrivals, constant spreads) survive contact with data. The empirical branch measures impact curves, adverse selection, and liquidity patterns from tick data; its perennial weakness is dataset access, so pay attention to which venue and period a result comes from before assuming it generalizes.
Related hubs: High-Frequency Trading & Execution, Statistical Arbitrage, Crypto Markets & DeFi.
Explainers from the corpus: VWAP prediction: methods and benchmarks →
Quantum Stochastic Calculus can be used as a means by which randomness can be introduced to observables acting on a Hilbert space. In this article we show how the mechanisms of Quantum Stochastic Calculus can be used to extend the classical Black-Scholes framework by incorporating a breakdown in the
The value of a forecast depends on its accuracy, but also on its actionability. In trading, an investor must translate return forecasts into positions while accounting for trading costs and the lingering impact of earlier trades. We solve the stationary quadratic trading problem with transient price
The square-root impact law (SRIL), $I = Yσ\sqrt{Q/V}$, bundles two facts that a single mechanism must explain at once: a shape (impact proportional to square-root of traded volume $Q$) and an amplitude ($Y=O(1)$, independent of the participation rate $φ$). Bonart has recently proposed an elegant sol
We give a unified analytic account of a finite bid–ask spread in a two-field reaction–diffusion order book. The model retains separate bid and ask densities in operational time, with diffusion, cancellation, reaction and external order creation. On the symmetric equal-coefficient branch, the imbal
Prediction markets are starting to look less like crowd polls and more like electronic markets. The central question is therefore no longer only whether these markets forecast well, but what happens when institutional liquidity enters: do spreads tighten, does price discovery improve, and do those g
We extend AMM trade functions to negative inputs via the \textit{concave continuation}, derived from the invariance of the local conservation law under allocation direction flips. This unifies routing and arbitrage into a single problem. We extend the one-hop transfer algorithm proposed in \cite{jia
We study the problem of asset liquidation in financial systems. During financial crises, asset liquidation is often inevitable but can lead to substantial losses if a significant amount of illiquid assets are sold simultaneously at depressed prices – a phenomenon known as price impact. To tackle th
Liquidation of collateral are the primary safeguard for solvency of lending protocols in decentralized finance. However, the mechanics of liquidations expose these protocols to predatory price manipulations and other forms of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV). In this paper, we characterize the optima
We develop an economic model of decentralised exchanges (DEXs) in which risk-averse liquidity providers (LPs) manage risk in a centralised exchange (CEX) based on preferences, information, and trading costs. Rational, risk-averse LPs anticipate the frictions associated with replication and manage ri
Chae and Kang (2019, \textit{“Pacific-Basin Finance Journal”}) documented a puzzling Low Volume Return Premium (LVRP) in Korea – contradicting global High Volume Return Premium (HVRP) evidence. We resolve this puzzle. Using Korean market data (2020-2024), we demonstrate that HVRP exists in Korea but
The analysis of financial markets using models inspired by statistical physics offers a fruitful approach to understand collective and extreme phenomena [“3, 14, 15”] In this paper, we present a study based on a 2D Ising network model where each spin represents an agent that interacts only with its
Concentrated-liquidity automated market makers (CLAMMs), as exemplified by Uniswap v3, are now a common primitive in decentralized finance frameworks. Their design combines continuous trading on constant-function curves with discrete tick boundaries at which liquidity positions change and rounding e
This paper develops a comprehensive theoretical framework that imports concepts from stochastic thermodynamics to model price impact and characterize the feasibility of round-trip arbitrage in financial markets. A trading cycle is treated as a non-equilibrium thermodynamic process, where price impac
We develop a theoretical framework that aims to link micro-level option hedging and stock-specific factor exposure with macro-level market turbulence and explain endogenous volatility amplification during gamma-squeeze events. By explicitly modeling market-maker delta-neutral hedging and incorporati
We model the trading activity between a broker and her clients (informed and uninformed traders) as an infinite-horizon stochastic control problem. We derive the broker’s optimal dealing strategy in closed form and use this to introduce an algorithm that bypasses the need to calibrate individual par
This paper examines the relationship between impermanent loss (IL) and loss-versus-rebalancing (LVR) in automated market makers (AMMs). Our main focus is on statistical properties, the impact of fees, the role of block times, and, related to the latter, the continuous time limit. We find there are t
We present a model of price formation in an inelastic market whose dynamics are partially driven by both money flows and their impact on asset prices. The money flow to the market is viewed as an investment policy of outside investors. For the price impact effect, we use an impact function that inco
We study strategic interactions in a broker-mediated market. A broker provides liquidity to an informed trader and to noise traders while managing inventory in the lit market. The broker and the informed trader maximise their trading performance while filtering each other’s private information; the
We consider a microstructure foundation for rough volatility models driven by Poisson random measures. In our model the volatility is driven by self-exciting arrivals of market orders as well as self-exciting arrivals of limit orders and cancellations. The impact of market order on future order arri
We examine the dynamics of informational efficiency in a market with asymmetrically informed, boundedly rational traders who adaptively learn optimal strategies using simple multiarmed bandit (MAB) algorithms. The strategies available to the traders have two dimensions: on the one hand, the traders
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