An Improved Estimation Method and Empirical Properties of the Probability of Informed Trading
Posted: 9 Aug 2011
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An Improved Estimation Method and Empirical Properties of the Probability of Informed Trading
Date Written: August 8, 2011
Abstract
We report evidence that boundary solutions can cause a bias in the estimate of the probability of informed trading (PIN). We develop an algorithm to overcome this bias and use it to estimate PIN for nearly 80,000 stock-quarters between 1993 and 2004. We obtain two sets of PIN estimates by using the factorized likelihood functions in both Easley, Hvidkjaer, and O’Hara (EHO, 2010) and Lin and Ke (LK, 2011), respectively. We find that the estimate based on the EHO factorization is systematically smaller than the estimate based on the LK factorization, meaning that there is a downward bias associated with the EHO factorization. In addition, we find that boundary solutions appear with a very high frequency when the LK factorization is used. Thus it is necessary to use the LK factorization together with the algorithm in this paper. At last, we document several interesting empirical properties of PIN.
Keywords: Boundary Solution, Probability of Informed Trading, PIN
JEL Classification: C13, C61, G12, G14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation