How Well Do Prices Converge in Anticipation of Capital Control Liberalization? Evidence from a Chinese Reform

This paper analyzes the effects of a pilot program that enables cross-market investment between Hong Kong and Shanghai's stock exchanges. Among the companies that are concurrently listed in both markets, the announcement of the program causes the price disparity between shares in both markets to reduce by an average of 16.6 percent within the same day of announcement. The price convergence is directly proportional to the magnitude of preexisting price disparity. Despite the large institutional differences between both markets, the prices converge symmetrically via initial share price increases in the market that traded the stock at a relative discount. The results suggest that capital control plays an important role in explaining the disparity of equity prices between markets.