Time-Varying Causalities in Prices and Volatilities between the Cross-Listed Stocks in Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong Stock Markets

Abstract

Due to the heterogeneity of investor structure between the Chinese mainland stock market (A-share market) and the Hong Kong stock market (H-share market) as well as the limitations on arbitrage activities, most cross-listed stocks in the two markets (AH stocks) have the characteristics of “one asset, two prices”, in which AH stocks with the same vote rights and dividend streams are traded at different prices in different markets. Based on the VAR (LA-VAR as well) model and a four-variable system including AH stock indices (AHXA, AHXH), the China Securities Index 300 (CSI 300), and the Hang Seng Index (HSI), this paper applies a new time-varying causality test to examine the causalities in prices and volatilities for two pairings (AXHA-AHXH pairing and CSI 300-HSI pairing) during the sample period spanning from 4 January 2010 to 21 May 2021. The empirical results exhibit statistically significant time-varying causalities of the two pairings. Specifically, at the price level, AHXH has a significant negative causal effect on AHXA from October 2017 to February 2020 except for several months in 2018, while AHXA merely has a negative impact on AHXA during a short period from March 2017 to May 2017. Of note, the direction of causalities in volatilities between AHXA and AHXH reverses. A positive causality is found from AHXA to AHXH at the 5% significance level during the period of April 2014 through May 2021, while no causality is detected in the opposite direction during the whole sample period. Meanwhile, the volatilities of CSI 300 significantly Granger cause those of HSI over the whole sample period, but not vice versa. Implications of our results are discussed.