Shared constraint
Institutions remain heterogeneous, but a common mandate, risk limit, market mechanism, or regulation narrows the set of feasible actions.
A research programme in financial economics
Markets do not only
process information.
They synchronize institutions.
Institutional Market Dynamics studies how shared constraints reshape portfolios, concentrate demand, and reorganize the covariance structure of markets.
Cconstraint
Agradient
Spressure
Γcovariance
One geometry.
Many institutional constraints.
01 / Core idea
Information explains what markets learn.
IMD explains how institutions must act.
The central claim is that heterogeneous institutions can become endogenously synchronized when they optimize under a shared constraint. The mechanism is complementary to information economics: it explains common movement without requiring a common news shock.
Complementary to information economics. Not agent-based. Not a taxonomy.
Common gradient
The institution-invariant component of the constraint survives aggregation and creates a directional pressure in portfolio demand.
Synchronized market
Concentrated demand changes covariance along the dominant pressure direction, producing measurable correlation lift and spillovers.
The synchronization law
Common gradient → synchronization pressure → dominant channel → covariance shift
Γ = Φ(D / MC)02 / Research programme
A theory tree,
not a paper list.
IMD is the umbrella research programme. IST supplies the theory ontology; Constraint Geometry turns it into a reusable method; IAT and the Korea studies carry the framework into empirical identification.
IMD-1
Theory core
Institutional Synchronization Theory
Defines synchronization equilibrium and the causal chain from lower portfolio dispersion to concentrated demand and amplified price response.
Foundation paper
IMD-2
Theoretical linchpin
Constraint Geometry of Institutional Synchronization
Defines the IST-admissible class, common gradient, synchronization pressure, Dominance Principle, and the Synchronization Law.
Working paper · v0.5
IAT v2.2.1
Empirical bridge
Structural-break identification via ETF reform
Uses the Korean single-stock leveraged-ETF reform to identify a break in dynamic dependence and calibrate the ETF creation–redemption channel.
Empirical II
WMMAO v0.7
First application
The Korea trading-halt cluster
Documents the cross-sectional footprint of institutional synchronization when trading halts interrupt, store, and release latent order imbalance.
Empirical I
03 / Representative papers
Four papers. One accumulating argument.
Flagship framework01
Constraint Geometry of Institutional Synchronization
A unified representation of benchmark tracking, Value-at-Risk, ETF creation–redemption, and short-sale constraints through a single equilibrium object: the common gradient.
Theory foundation02
Institutional Synchronization Theory
Explains how heterogeneous institutions become endogenously coupled under shared constraints—without requiring common information arrival.
Empirical identification03
IAT v2.2.1 · ETF Reform Identification
Turns a stand-alone structural-break study into a calibration target for the general theory using Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and the Korean leveraged-ETF regime.
Empirical application04
Trading Halts as Institutional Responses
Uses the KRX halt cluster as the first empirical showcase of how institutional constraints synchronize rebalancing, volatility, and spillovers.
04 / Research frontier
The method is a research engine,
not a paper label.
The next phase asks when constraints activate, how their channels can be separately identified, and where the geometry travels next.
Dynamic Geometry
Time-varying constraints, endogenous activation, path dependence, and a Bellman formulation of institutional synchronization.
Identification Geometry
A cross-channel horse race using benchmark reconstitutions, VaR regimes, ETF launches, and short-sale interventions.
Applied Geometry
New constraint classes: ESG mandates, insurer capital rules, bank leverage, pension funding, and policy design.
“Synchronization is the theory ontology.
Constraint is one source of synchronization.”
Institutional Market Dynamics
Research programme · 2026—