This paper investigates the impact of “Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Policy” on price difference and announcement effects of A Shares and H Shares, using daily data from Aug., 2014 to Feb., 2015. Data were obtained from Bloomberg. To be comparable, we collect simultaneous trading data. We find that listed time and SSE 180 sample share variables have a significant effect on price difference. The price difference after Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Policy is bigger than the price difference before Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Policy. Moreover, we find that implementation of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Policy has announcement effects.
China has been intensively launching opening-up policies since November 2014. Among these policies, the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect offers international investors an approach to investing directly in Mainland China stock markets. At the same time, Mainland China capital can gain access to overseas markets via Hong Kong. This study investigates the influence of the policy by using the Vector Autoregressive and Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic framework. The results show that the new policy has different impacts on the Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong stock markets due to their distinct market features and policy restrictions. The three markets also transmit the policy effects to one another due to their close linkages. It not only indicates that Mainland China financial centers (Shanghai and Shenzhen) integrate with one of international financial centers (Hong Kong), but also symbolizes the gradually increasing strength of Chinese policy effects on global capital markets.
The economic growth of China has seen an increase in its demand for capital, fuelling its local stock markets. This paper examines a market liberalisation event between China and Hong Kong and its impact on market liquidity and price convergence for cross-listed stocks in the two markets. On November 17, 2014, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange introduced the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SHHKConnect), a bilateral investment channel between the two markets. The new channel brings with it accesses to new capital for domestic firms and trading expertise from new foreign participants for both regions. The SHHKConnect permits mutual market access for market participants, facilitating trade in each market using existing trading infrastructure. This study adopts a difference-in-difference methodology and finds that market liquidity as proxied by transaction costs, improves in both markets, for eligible stocks that are traded through the bilateral investment channel, three-months post November 17, 2014. Over a longer event horizon of six-months, liquidity in China continues to improve, whereas in Hong Kong it decreases. In addition, reported results identify that the pre-existing price premium between cross-listed China A-shares and Hong Kong H-shares, increases following the market design change. We attribute the increase in price divergence to the incremental improvement in liquidity in China vis-à-vis Hong Kong.
The economic growth of China has seen an increase in its demand for capital, fueling its local stock markets. This paper exams a market liberalisation event between China and Hong Kong and its impact on: (1) market liquidity and (2) price differentials between cross-listed stocks across the two markets. On November 17, 2014, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange introduced the much anticipated, Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect, a bilateral investment channel between the two markets. The new channel brings with it accesses to new capital for domestic firms and trading expertise from new foreign participants. The Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect permits mutual market access for market participants, allowing investors in each market to trade in the other market using existing trading infrastructure. This study adopts a difference-in-difference methodology and finds that market liquidity as proxied by transaction costs, improves in both markets, for eligible stocks that are traded through the bilateral investment channel, post November 17, 2014. This result is consistent with literature, which identifies the benefits of open and enhanced market access. In addition, reported results identify that the pre-existing price premium between cross-listed China A-shares and Hong Kong H-shares, increases following the market design change. Contrary to expectations, this result is attributed to the incremental improvement in liquidity in China for cross-listed stocks vis-à-vis Hong Kong. Overall, results in this study demonstrate that the partial liberalisation of fund flow between the two markets had a positive impact on liquidity, in particular for China's largest equity market the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
This significant and timely book explores a novel market mechanism, Stock Connect, which gives mutual market access to Chinese and international investors, and provides original analyses and fresh insights. This mechanism could become the new normal in future global financial integration. By examining this cross-border scheme from a regulatory perspective via a three-tiered analytical framework (investors, issuers and regulators), this book unearths the profound implications of Stock Connect to local and global financial markets and the legal impediments to its implementation. It covers a broad range of topics in this cross-boundary investment channel, including an overview of four existing connectivity arrangements (Shanghai-Hong Kong, Shenzhen-Hong Kong, Shanghai-London and China-Switzerland), the uniqueness of these connectivity arrangements, investor protection, regulations of connect issuers, regulatory cooperation and enforcement, the impacts on local and global financial markets, the implications for the world market connectivity as well as the challenges and future of Stock Connect. This pioneering study will appeal to a broad range of readers who are interested in the on-going reshaping of international financial systems and China's emerging influence in the international financial order.
This paper tests for the existence of the magnet effect linked to price limits imposed in China’s equity markets and how a market liberalization event affects trading in securities that are bound by price limits vis-à-vis those that are not. The magnet effect of price limits theorises that, instead of stabilising markets, price limits act as a magnet and their existence causes trading to accelerate towards the limits, increasing the likelihood of the limit being reached. This study provides evidence of the magnet effect in China and that the effect increases in magnitude following the opening of China’s capital markets via the Shanghai-Hong Kong Connect (SHHK Connect). The increased magnitude of the magnet effect of price limits is due to the new inflow of capital from global markets via Hong Kong, as stronger results are found for those firms that experience the largest increase in capital inflow vis-à-vis those that do not.
We document the effect on Chinese firms of the Shanghai (Shenzhen)-Hong Kong Stock Connect. The Connect was an important capital account liberalization introduced in the mid-2010s. It created a channel for cross-border equity investments into a selected set of Chinese stocks while China's overall capital controls policy remained in place. Using a difference-in-difference approach, and with careful attention to sample selection issues, we find that mainland Chinese firm-level investment is negatively affected by contractionary U.S. monetary policy shocks and that firms in the Connect are more adversely affected than those outside of it. These effects are stronger for firms whose stock return has a higher covariance with the world market return and for firms relying more on external financing. We also find that firms in the Connect enjoy lower financing costs, invest more, and have higher profitability than unconnected firms. We discuss the implications of our results for the debate on capital controls and independence of Chinese monetary policy.
We utilize a fundamentally different model of trading costs to look at the effect of the opening of the Hong Kong Shanghai Connect that links the stock exchanges in the two cities, arguably the biggest event in international business and finance since Christopher Columbus set sail for India. We design a novel methodology that compensates for the lack of data on trading costs in China. We estimate trading costs across similar positions on the dual listed set of securities in Hong Kong and China, hoping to provide useful pieces of information to help scale “The Great Wall of Chinese Securities Trading Costs”. We then compare actual and estimated trading costs on a sample of real orders across the Hong Kong securities in the dual listed pair to establish the accuracy of our measurements.The primary question we seek to address is “Which market would be better to trade to gain exposure to the same (or similar) set of securities or sectors?” We find that trading costs on Shanghai, which might have been lower than Hong Kong, might have become higher leading up to the Connect. What remains to be seen is whether this increase in trading costs is a temporary equilibrium due to the frenzy to gain exposure to Chinese securities or whether this phenomenon will persist once the two markets start becoming more and more tightly coupled. It would be interesting to see if this pioneering policy will lead to securities exchanges across the globe linking up one another, creating a trade anything, anywhere and anytime marketplace. Looking beyond mere trading costs, such studies can be used to gather some evidence on what effect the mode of governance and other aspects of life in one country have on another country, once they start joining up their financial markets.
