IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/quaeco/v76y2020icp12-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The value premium puzzle, behavior versus risk: New evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Clark, Ephraim
  • Qiao, Zhuo

Abstract

This paper investigates the value premium puzzle in the Chinese stock market. After establishing that the value premium does exist in the Chinese stock market, it uses an innovative technique based on stochastic dominance theory to test the behavior based versus risk based explanations for the puzzle. We find no evidence of a systematic behavioral factor, such as over/under-reaction, that is driving this premium. This finding is robust with respect to negative and positive return regimes. We do, however, find strong evidence that the value premium reflects compensation for bearing more risk associated with financial inflexibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Clark, Ephraim & Qiao, Zhuo, 2020. "The value premium puzzle, behavior versus risk: New evidence from China," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 12-21.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:76:y:2020:i:c:p:12-21
    DOI: 10.1016/j.qref.2019.04.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062976918302394
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.qref.2019.04.007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher A. Hennessy & Toni M. Whited, 2007. "How Costly Is External Financing? Evidence from a Structural Estimation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1705-1745, August.
    2. Abel, Andrew B & Eberly, Janice C, 1994. "A Unified Model of Investment under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1369-1384, December.
    3. Lei Feng & Mark Seasholes, 2005. "Do Investor Sophistication and Trading Experience Eliminate Behavioral Biases in Financial Markets?," Review of Finance, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 305-351, September.
    4. Abhay Abhyankar & Keng-Yu Ho & Huainan Zhao, 2009. "International value versus growth: evidence from stochastic dominance analysis," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(3), pages 222-232.
    5. Ng, Lilian & Wu, Fei, 2006. "Revealed stock preferences of individual investors: Evidence from Chinese equity markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 175-192, April.
    6. Luis García‐Feijóo & Randy D. Jorgensen, 2010. "Can Operating Leverage Be the Cause of the Value Premium?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 1127-1154, September.
    7. Jarrow, Robert, 1986. "The Relationship between Arbitrage and First Order Stochastic Dominance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(4), pages 915-921, September.
    8. Chen, Nai-fu & Zhang, Feng, 1998. "Risk and Return of Value Stocks," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(4), pages 501-535, October.
    9. Murray Carlson & Adlai Fisher & Ron Giammarino, 2004. "Corporate Investment and Asset Price Dynamics: Implications for the Cross-section of Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(6), pages 2577-2603, December.
    10. Lei Feng & Mark S. Seasholes, 2005. "Do Investor Sophistication and Trading Experience Eliminate Behavioral Biases in Financial Markets?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(3), pages 305-351.
    11. Dmitry Livdan & Horacio Sapriza & Lu Zhang, 2009. "Financially Constrained Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1827-1862, August.
    12. Russell Davidson & Jean-Yves Duclos, 2000. "Statistical Inference for Stochastic Dominance and for the Measurement of Poverty and Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(6), pages 1435-1464, November.
    13. Post, Thierry & van Vliet, Pim & Levy, Haim, 2008. "Risk aversion and skewness preference," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1178-1187, July.
    14. Thomas C. Chiang & Zhuo Qiao & Wing-Keung Wong, 2011. "A Markov Regime-Switching Model of Stock Return Volatility: Evidence from Chinese Markets," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Greg N. Gregoriou & Razvan Pascalau (ed.), Nonlinear Financial Econometrics: Markov Switching Models, Persistence and Nonlinear Cointegration, chapter 3, pages 49-73, Palgrave Macmillan.
    15. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    16. Lakonishok, Josef & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1994. "Contrarian Investment, Extrapolation, and Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1541-1578, December.
    17. Daniel, Kent & Titman, Sheridan, 1997. "Evidence on the Characteristics of Cross Sectional Variation in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 1-33, March.
    18. Kraus, Alan & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1976. "Skewness Preference and the Valuation of Risk Assets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1085-1100, September.
    19. Ilan Cooper, 2006. "Asset Pricing Implications of Nonconvex Adjustment Costs and Irreversibility of Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 139-170, February.
    20. Kim, Kenneth A. & Nofsinger, John R., 2008. "Behavioral finance in Asia," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 16(1-2), pages 1-7, January.
    21. Charles M. Beach & Russell Davidson, 1983. "Distribution-Free Statistical Inference with Lorenz Curves and Income Shares," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(4), pages 723-735.
    22. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    23. Whitmore, G A, 1970. "Third-Degree Stochastic Dominance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 457-459, June.
    24. Fong, Wai Mun, 2010. "A stochastic dominance analysis of yen carry trades," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1237-1246, June.
    25. Oliver Linton & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Yoon-Jae Whang, 2005. "Consistent Testing for Stochastic Dominance under General Sampling Schemes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 735-765.
    26. Lee, Bong Soo & Li, Wei & Wang, Steven Shuye, 2010. "The dynamics of individual and institutional trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 116-137, January.
    27. Michael Poulsen & Robert Faff & Stephen Gray, 2013. "Financial Inflexibility and the Value Premium," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 13(3), pages 327-344, September.
    28. Garry F. Barrett & Stephen G. Donald, 2003. "Consistent Tests for Stochastic Dominance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 71-104, January.
    29. G. Hanoch & H. Levy, 1969. "The Efficiency Analysis of Choices Involving Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 36(3), pages 335-346.
    30. Mandelker, Gershon N. & Rhee, S. Ghon, 1984. "The Impact of the Degrees of Operating and Financial Leverage on Systematic Risk of Common Stock," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 45-57, March.
    31. Dugan, Michael T & Shriver, Keith A, 1992. "An Empirical Comparison of Alternative Methods for the Estimation of the Degree of Operating Leverage," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 27(2), pages 309-321, May.
    32. James P. Quirk & Rubin Saposnik, 1962. "Admissibility and Measurable Utility Functions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 29(2), pages 140-146.
    33. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello & Michael S. Weisbach, 2004. "The Cash Flow Sensitivity of Cash," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1777-1804, August.
    34. Toni M. Whited & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Financial Constraints Risk," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 531-559.
    35. Ron Giammarino & Murray Carlson & Adlai Fisher, 2004. "Corporate Investment and Asset Price Dynamics: Implications for Post-SEO Performance," 2004 Meeting Papers 812, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    36. Charles J. Hadlock & Joshua R. Pierce, 2010. "New Evidence on Measuring Financial Constraints: Moving Beyond the KZ Index," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 1909-1940.
    37. Tan, Lin & Chiang, Thomas C. & Mason, Joseph R. & Nelling, Edward, 2008. "Herding behavior in Chinese stock markets: An examination of A and B shares," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 16(1-2), pages 61-77, January.
    38. Fong, Wai Mun, 2012. "Do expected business conditions explain the value premium?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 181-206.
    39. Chris Starmer, 2000. "Developments in Non-expected Utility Theory: The Hunt for a Descriptive Theory of Choice under Risk," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 332-382, June.
    40. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard H, 1987. "Further Evidence on Investor Overreaction and Stock Market Seasonalit y," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 557-581, July.
    41. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli, 2006. "Small and medium-size enterprises: Access to finance as a growth constraint," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 2931-2943, November.
    42. Lu Zhang, 2005. "The Value Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 67-103, February.
    43. Eun, Cheol S. & Huang, Wei, 2007. "Asset pricing in China's domestic stock markets: Is there a logic?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 452-480, November.
    44. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    45. Anderson, Gordon, 1996. "Nonparametric Tests of Stochastic Dominance in Income Distributions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1183-1193, September.
    46. Petkova, Ralitsa & Zhang, Lu, 2005. "Is value riskier than growth?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 187-202, October.
    47. Benoit Mandelbrot, 2015. "The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 3, pages 39-78, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    48. Feng, Lei & Seasholes, Mark S., 2008. "Individual investors and gender similarities in an emerging stock market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 16(1-2), pages 44-60, January.
    49. Haim Falk & Haim Levy, 1989. "Market Reaction to Quarterly Earnings' Announcements: A Stochastic Dominance Based Test of Market Efficiency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 425-446, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hafiz Muhammad Zia ul haq & Muhammad Sohail Shafiq & Muhammad Kashif & Saba Ameer, 2020. "Determining Force behind Value Premium: The Case of Financial Leverage and Operating Leverage," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-15, September.
    2. Chen, Xuanjuan & Kim, Kenneth A. & Yao, Tong & Yu, Tong, 2010. "On the predictability of Chinese stock returns," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 403-425, September.
    3. Zhuo Qiao & Wing-Keung Wong, 2015. "Which is a better investment choice in the Hong Kong residential property market: a big or small property?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(16), pages 1670-1685, April.
    4. Luis García‐Feijóo & Randy D. Jorgensen, 2010. "Can Operating Leverage Be the Cause of the Value Premium?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 1127-1154, September.
    5. Eero Pätäri & Timo Leivo, 2017. "A Closer Look At Value Premium: Literature Review And Synthesis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 79-168, February.
    6. Lu Zhang, 2017. "The Investment CAPM," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(4), pages 545-603, September.
    7. Chung, Yi-Tsai & Hsu, Chuan-Hao & Ke, Mei-Chu & Liao, Tung Liang & Chiang, Yi-Chein, 2016. "The weakening value premium in the Australian and New Zealand stock markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 123-133.
    8. Chan, Chia-Ying & de Peretti, Christian & Qiao, Zhuo & Wong, Wing-Keung, 2012. "Empirical test of the efficiency of the UK covered warrants market: Stochastic dominance and likelihood ratio test approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 162-174.
    9. Christodoulakis, George & Mohamed, Abdulkadir & Topaloglou, Nikolas, 2018. "Optimal privatization portfolios in the presence of arbitrary risk aversion," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(3), pages 1172-1191.
    10. Michael Poulsen & Robert Faff & Stephen Gray, 2013. "Financial Inflexibility and the Value Premium," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 13(3), pages 327-344, September.
    11. Stefan Nagel, 2013. "Empirical Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 167-199, November.
    12. Bai, Hang & Hou, Kewei & Kung, Howard & Li, Erica X.N. & Zhang, Lu, 2019. "The CAPM strikes back? An equilibrium model with disasters," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(2), pages 269-298.
    13. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    14. Kwame Addae-Dapaah & James Webb & Kim Ho & Yan Tan, 2010. "Industrial Real Estate Investment: Does the Contrarian Strategy Work?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 193-227, August.
    15. Hooi Hooi Lean & Michael McAleer & Wing-Keung Wong, 2013. "Risk-averse and Risk-seeking Investor Preferences for Oil Spot and Futures," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2013-31, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico, revised Aug 2013.
    16. Erica X. N. Li & Dmitry Livdan & Lu Zhang, 2009. "Anomalies," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4301-4334, November.
    17. Cooper, Michael J. & Gubellini, Stefano, 2011. "The critical role of conditioning information in determining if value is really riskier than growth," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 289-305, March.
    18. Calvet, Laurent E. & Betermier, Sebastien & Jo, Evan, 2019. "A Supply and Demand Approach to Equity Pricing," CEPR Discussion Papers 13974, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Chang, Hao-Wen & Chiang, Yi-Chein & Ke, Mei-Chu & Wang, Ming-Hui & Nguyen, Tien-Trung, 2023. "Market efficiency of Asian stock markets during the financial crisis and non-financial crisis periods," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 312-329.
    20. Hooi Hooi Lean & Michael McAleer & Wing-Keung Wong, 2010. "Market Efficiency of Oil Spot and Futures: A Stochastic Dominance Approach," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-705, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Value premium puzzle; Risk; Financial inflexibility; Stochastic dominance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:76:y:2020:i:c:p:12-21. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620167 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.