The existence of flight-to-quality under extreme conditions: Evidence from a nonlinear perspective in Chinese stocks and bonds' sectors

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has showed that distress to the financial system is always accompanied with the interconnection between the stock and bond markets. However, limited studies have identified the flight-toquality effect between these two markets from a nonlinear extreme perspective. Thus, using the multi-quantile VaR Granger causality test that measures the non-linearity of extreme risk, we investigated this effect in Chinese sectors via extreme risk spillover networks. Based on the findings, defensive (offensive) sectors are dominant in the stock market when facing upside (downside) risk to avoid potential investment losses. The results also confirm the robustness of the conclusion that the investment function of the financial markets weakened during the financial crisis. Moreover, compared to the Financial Bond and Enterprise Bond, the Government Bond is likely to show better risk hedging effect in cross-market risk spillover networks due to its high information transparency.