An examination of herding behaviour of the Chinese mutual funds: A time-varying perspective

Abstract

This paper investigates the existence of herding behaviour in the Chinese mutual fund market from a time-varying perspective. We examine the relationship between the dispersion of fund returns and the fund market returns using a Markov regime switching approach, and explore the driving factors of herding under different regimes. Our results suggest that herding behaviour is time-varying and heterogeneous across different fund types, investment styles, fund sizes, and industrial groups. In addition, the observed herding behaviours are mainly driven by non-fundamentals. We also find that herding behaviour is more pronounced during the up market and becomes insignificant during the down market.