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Stock market reactions under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from China

Wenyu Zhou, Yujun Zhou, Adam Zaremba and Huaigang Long

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 2024, vol. 42, issue C

Abstract: This paper studies how the Chinese stock market reacts to new COVID-19 infections under the zero-COVID policy. Consistent with the literature, we find that a COVID-19 outbreak within a city adversely affects the performance of local firms, but further unveils the effect’s nonlinearity. More importantly, we document an unexpected pattern of spatial spillover of the COVID-19 shock, which is likely to be caused by the policy itself. In addition, firms with significant retail exposure are most vulnerable, while firms with low pandemic exposure, larger size, state-owned enterprise (SOE) status, and robust finances demonstrate greater resilience to the COVID-19 shock. Mechanism analysis indicates that the COVID-19 effects are realized through both cash flow and discount rate channels. Supplementary back-of-the-envelope calculations illustrate the substantial economic consequences of these phenomena, which shed light on the debate on the optimal policy in response to a future pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Zero-COVID policy; Chinese stock market; Stock returns; Spatial spillover (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G12 G14 G18 G32 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:42:y:2024:i:c:s2214635024000388

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2024.100923

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