The authors investigate gender behavior in the People’s Republic of
China (PRC). Account-level data for 51,218 individuals are obtained
from 15 branch offices of a national Chinese brokerage firm. The data
consist of more than 3 million transactions from January 1999
through December 2000 and account for approximately US$1 billion
in equity holdings (an exchange rate of 8 renminbi [RMB] to 1 U.S.
dollar is used for the study). All individual investors trade during the
sample period and are from seven different provinces, which vary in
geographical size, GDP, and household income. The unique feature
of the PRC data is that men and women are equally represented in
the sample. Previous studies from the United States indicate that up
to 80 percent of U.S. investors are men. PRC investors are younger
than U.S. investors, which the authors attribute to (1) a shorter life
expectancy in China, (2) equities traditionally not being held for
retirement in China, and (3) the recent opening of the Chinese stock
markets, which is more likely to attract young people.
The authors report that the total value held by the investors in their
sample on 1 June 2000 was RMB7,005 million. They report that
portfolio values are correlated highly with household income and less
so with GDP per capita (0.81 and 0.33, respectively). Men in general
have larger average portfolio values than women, and the disparity
between the genders is greater in the wealthier provinces (with Beijing
being the only exception). The average buy transaction for men is RMB
37,479, compared with the average purchase for women of RMB
33,861. Although men have higher average trade amounts than women
for both buy and sell transactions, the local bias is similar. For example,
the average overweighting in the home province is 8.97 percent for
men and 9.23 percent for women, which is not statistically different.
The market performance of men versus women is analyzed by forming
portfolios when a transaction occurs and then calculating the
20-day holding period returns. Although women outperformed men
for buy and sell transactions by 1.33 and 1.21 bps per day, respectively,
the difference is not statistically significant.
The authors use an innovative approach to analyze the trading
intensity. Instead of observing portfolio turnover, they use survival
analysis and a hazard ratio to compare the genders. The maximum
likelihood estimates of the regression coefficients with gender as the
only independent variable indicate that men are 20 percent more
likely than women to trade. The significance of the gender difference
in trading intensity disappears when the model controls for age,
diversification, and trading rights, which is the number of methods
(e.g., phone, online) available for trading.
Overall, the authors’ main contribution is the finding that gender
differences among Chinese investors are not consistent with the
results of studies of investors in developed markets. Specifically, no
difference between the genders is found in Chinese investor performance
or trading intensity. And although Chinese male investors have
larger portfolios and trade larger amounts, the home-province bias is
similar between male and female investors