Effect of KRX Designated Market Maker on Liquidity

The transformation of order-driven markets into a hybrid market by introducing market makers reflects the global trend to increase market quality factors, such as liquidity. This study evaluates how market makers influence liquidity, using the data on market maker-designated stocks collected in 2020. The analysis of the effectiveness of the market maker and significance of individual stock-level liquidity shows that the effect of newly designated stocks is higher than that of undesignated stocks. The study finds that the effect of increasing the stock liquidity of consecutively designated market makers is lower than that of the newly designated market makers; in particular, the effect of increased liquidity dominated the effect of the entire sample period during which short selling was banned. These empirical findings are interpreted as the effect of funds inflow, which occurred due to the monetary policies adopted and prohibition of short selling by financial authorities during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, combined with the liquidity provision of market makers. Overall, we compare the level of liquidity in the stocks designated by market makers to highly liquid stocks; the market maker’s role is assessed to have an effect on liquidity.