The Information Efficiency of Stock Index Futures in China

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the recent introduction of Index Futures in China has reduced volatility in the underlying spot market, and whether the index futures market effectively serves the price discovery function in both the short run and the long run. Applying GARCH model, we find that the volatility on CSI 300 Index was alleviated due to the emergence of the index futures. Moreover, the Granger Causality test figured out that in the short run, futures index market and the underlying stock market have reciprocal causation relationship but the causation effect from futures index market to spot market is relatively weaker. Johanson Cointegration test and VECM Model further revealed that the index futures market and the spot stock market are cointegrated while the index futures market responds more swiftly to new information than the spot stock market. The results of this paper verify that the index futures market in China does play the role of price discovery and information transfer, although it needs further improvement.