The Journal of Finance

The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.

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Short‐Sales Constraints and Price Discovery: Evidence from the Hong Kong Market

Published: 09/04/2007   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2007.01270.x

ERIC C. CHANG, JOSEPH W. CHENG, YINGHUI YU

Short‐sales practices in the Hong Kong stock market are unique in that only stocks on a list of designated securities can be sold short. By analyzing the price effects following the addition of individual stocks to the list, we find that short‐sales constraints tend to cause stock overvaluation and that the overvaluation effect is more dramatic for individual stocks for which wider dispersion of investor opinions exists. These findings are consistent with Miller's (1977) intuition and other optimism models. We also document higher volatility and less positive skewness of individual stock returns when short sales are allowed.