On balance, the evidence presented in these two figures seems to suggest that market liquidity has not deteriorated in recent years--subject, of course, to the caveat I just discussed about the possibility that our measures of bid-ask spreads could be distorted by the increasing role of investors as suppliers rather than demanders of liquidity.
11 As an aside, the market liquidity figures shown are only for the corporate bond market, but we see similar patterns in the equity and Treasury markets. 12 That is, we do not find convincing evidence that liquidity has markedly declined in those markets.