Transparent bond prices lead to lower transaction costs for public traders.
The study looked at how much it costs to trade corporate bonds in the U.S. They found that the cost of trading bonds goes down as the size of the trade goes up. Bonds that are highly rated, new, or close to maturity have lower trading costs. Bonds with clear prices are cheaper to trade, and costs drop when prices are made public. This means that people who trade bonds benefit a lot from knowing the prices.