Price impact and asset pricing

Using intradaily order flows processed via the Lee and Ready (1991) algorithm for NYSE/AMEX-listed stocks over the past 27 years, I estimate a set of price-impact parameters. The results provide strong evidence that price impact is priced in the cross-section of stock returns, even after controlling for risk factors, firm characteristics, and other low-frequency-based illiquidity proxies prevalent in the literature. While the Amihud (2002) measure is the best proxy of its kind, no low-frequency-based proxies can parallel the price-impact parameters. This suggests that price impact as a measure of illiquidity can be estimated more precisely by intradaily order flows, because it incorporates incremental information that comes out of high-frequency data. Therefore, price impact does a better job in capturing the return premium for illiquidity.