Seminar (Dept. of Finance)

Title: Finding Anomalies in China

Speaker: Kewei Hou, Professor, Ohio State University

Time: 9:00-10:30, Dec.12, 2022 (Monday)

Venue: Online Meeting

Language: English

ABSTRACT:

To study the cross-section of returns in the Chinese stock market, we follow the anomaly literature and construct 454 strategies between 2000 and 2020, based on 208 firm-level trading and accounting signals. With the conventional single-testing t-statistic cutoff of 1.96, 101 strategies have significant value-weighted raw returns, and 20 remain significant after risk adjustments. To avoid false discoveries, we recalibrate the t-statistic cutoff to 2.85 to accommodate multiple testing. 36 strategies survive the higher hurdle rate in value-weighted raw returns, while none remains significant after risk adjustments. When we use machine learning techniques to combine information from multiple signals, the resulting composite strategies mostly have significant returns after risk adjustments, even with the higher t-statistic cutoff. We relate Chinese anomaly returns to aggregate economic conditions and find that they comove with financial market development, accounting quality, market liquidity, and government regulations.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY:

Professor Kewei Hou is currently Ric Dillon Endowed Professor in Investments at the Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University.  Professor Kewei Hou’s primary research interest is in the area of empirical asset pricing with a specialization in the predictability of asset returns. He has published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Review of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Management Science.

Professor Hou is an Editor of the Journal of Empirical Finance, Associate Editor of the Journal of Banking and Finance and Asia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies, Faculty Research Fellow of the Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics and the China Academy of Financial Research, and the recipient of research grants from the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance (Q-Group), INQUIRE-Europe, INQUIRE-UK, BSI GAMMA Foundation, Chicago Quantitative Alliance, and Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong. Professor Hou joined the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business in 2001. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.