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Review of Financial Studies Vol. 34 No. 12 2021

The Whack-a-Mole Game: Tobin Taxes and Trading Frenzy

Jinghan Cai1; Jibao He2; Wenxi Jiang3; Wei Xiong4

1 University of Scranton · 2 Shenzhen Stock Exchange · 3 CUHK Business School, The Chinese University of Hong Kong · 4 Princeton University, CUHK Shenzhen, and the NBER

Abstract

To dampen trading frenzy in the stock market, the Chinese government tripled the stamp tax for stock trading on May 30, 2007. The greatly increased trading cost triggered a migration of the trading frenzy from the stock market to the warrant market, which was not subject to the stamp tax. This migration exacerbated a price bubble in the warrant market. Our analysis of investor account data uncovers not only large inflows of new investors to the warrant market but also greatly intensified trading by existing warrant investors. This episode exemplifies the so-called “whack-a-mole” game in financial regulations.

DOI
10.1093/rfs/hhaa135
Volume
34
Issue
12
Pages
5723-5755
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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