Efficacy and Microstructure Effects of Insider Trading Regulations

While insider trading has been the subject of significantattention from law makers and regulators, the impact on financialmarkets of these laws is uncertain. Even the question of whethersuch rules restrain and limit insiders is undecided. However, thelack of clear guidance on the effectiveness of insider tradingregulations or on the best way to structure such rules has notprevented their enactment in almost all countries with a financialmarket. In this book,we seek to explore this issue in more depth byexamining the experience of New Zealand in moving from a laxinsider trading regime to a strong regime. The impact of thisregulatory change is examined with respect to its impact oninsiders trading behaviour, the impact on certain aspects of themarket such as transaction costs, liquidity and costs ofinformation asymmetry in the market. Finally, we offer somesuggestions on the structure of insider trading rules byinvestigating the legal regimes enacted in 18 countries. We attemptto offer some guidance to policy makers on the features that willminimise the harm of insider dealing while improving theinformational efficiency of the market.