The Impact of the Shanghai–Hong Kong Connect on Market Liquidity and Price Divergence

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Liquidity, Cross-listed securities, Bilateral investment

JEL Classification: G140; G180