Liquidity Risk and Asset Returns : The Case of the Korean Stock Market

This paper investigates various channels through which liquidity can affect stock returns and examines whether behavioral explanation for liquidity risk is reasonable. First, we examine whether liquidity level (average liquidity) plays a significant role in determining asset returns. The result is consistent with the hypothesis that a stock with higher average illiquidity will have a higher expected return. Second, we focus on the argument that liquidity has a non-diversifiable systematic component. If systemic liquidity has a different impact across individual securities, a stock that is more sensitive to systematic liquidity will have a higher expected return. The results of various tests are inconsistent with each other, not completely supporting the argument. Finally, the intra-market tests in Korea support the behavioral explanation for the liquidity premium, and the effect is stronger in the liquidity level than in the liquidity beta related to systematic liquidity.