LIQUIDITY, RECONSTITUTION, AND THE VALUE OF UNITED-STATES TREASURY STRIPS

An apparent pricing anomaly exists in the market for U.S. Treasury strips: zero-coupon strips created from principal payments typically trade at significantly higher prices than otherwise identical zero-coupon strips created from coupon payments. In addition to documenting this phenomenon, this study demonstrates that differences in liquidity and differences in reconstitution characteristics explain much of this price variation.