Linkages and Spillovers between Internet Finance and Traditional Finance: Evidence from China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Investors, researchers, and policy makers have an urgent need to understand the linkages between internet finance and traditional financial markets. This study collects corresponding daily industrial indices of the banking, security, and insurance industries from the Wind database to depict the traditional financial market in China and uses an online loan comprehensive interest rate index as a proxy for internet finance. The empirical results first show that only internet finance and the banking industry have mutual causality. Then, using conditional value at risk (CoVaR) to measure the degree of spillovers, the risk of internet finance is more likely to spill over to the banking industry, followed by the insurance industry and, lastly, the securities industry. These findings are consistent with the closeness between internet finance and the banking, insurance, and security industries, respectively. The linkage relationships and spillover effect are robust to the method and market index applied.