An “order book” is a list of various traders’ buy or sell instructions for a given financial instrument.  A stock exchange uses such an order book to keep track of how many shares are being bid or offered at each potential price point.  That information, in turn, determines the actual price quoted by the exchange at any moment in time.  This grant funds work by John Liechty and Mark Flood to study the behavior of traders when they send messages to a financial exchange for inclusion in an order book. The researchers will model how trader behavior depends on available information and attentiveness, exploring how asymmetries in these qualities can have dramatic effects.  Liechty and Flood will also focus very specifically on whether detailed order-book data could help financial regulators predict or mitigate systemic market failures.