Do investors herd in emerging stock markets?: Evidence from the Taiwanese market

Abstract

This paper has three main contributions to the literature on investor herds. First, it extends investor herding studies to an emerging yet relatively sophisticated Taiwanese stock market at the sector level by using firm level data. Second, it employs different methodologies designed to test the existence of investor herds to better understand the sources of herd behavior. Third, it discusses the implications of different herding measures for investors exposed to systematic and unsystematic risks. We find that the linear model based on the cross-sectional standard deviation (CSSD) testing methodology yields no significant evidence of herding. However, the non-linear model proposed by Chang et al. (2000) and the state space based models of Hwang and Salmon (2004) lead to consistent results indicating strong evidence of herd formation in all sectors. We also find that the herding effect is more prominent during periods of market losses. Our results suggest limited diversification opportunities for investors in this market, especially during periods of market losses when diversification is most needed. Further research is necessary to see whether similar findings hold for other emerging markets.