Trading Imbalances, Liquidity, and the Law of One Price

Abstract

This paper studies trading and prices of dual/cross-listed stocks (i.e., equities from a single company that trade in more than one country). We focus on PRC rms with shares listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong. well-publicized index tracks the average price disparity across the two exchanges and shows signicant variation over time. We show that dierences in order imbalances (in Shanghai vs Hong Kong) explain contemporaneous changes in relative prices at daily and weekly frequencies. Our results help clarify liquidity-driven explanations from sentiment-based ones.

Keywords: Law of One Price, Cross-Listings, Order Imbalances

JEL Classification: G1, G12