Margin trading and spillover effects: Evidence from the Chinese stock markets

Using a sample of Chinese stocks, we demonstrate that liquidity and return in stocks with margin trading can spread to other stocks causing spillover effects. Furthermore, the level of margin interest has a positive relation with the degree of spillover effects from relevant stocks. In addition to the deleverage mechanism which has received support from recent studies, we propose the cross-asset learning behavior in stock markets as a new mechanism to explain such relation. The mediation models suggest that the cross-asset learning mechanism can explain a large proportion of the relation between margin trading and spillover effects in stock markets.