Impact of Sanctions on Russian and Chinese Stock Markets : An empirical analysis based on stock data

Abstract

An ongoing war in Ukraine turned out to be the biggest event of 2022. Allied nations decisively imposed series of sanctions that sent Russian economy into a turmoil. As shock and awe of the first weeks of invasions dissipated, academia began to get supplemented by new views and ideas of scholars on the consequences and prospects of war. In this paper we provide a fresh outlook on sanctions by analyzing stock prices in Russia and China. Stock prices provide multiple storylines, and thus our analysis covers topics like insider trading, medium-term outcome, market rebound and covert trades. To examine consequences of sanctions on Russia we utilized a multi-layered approach by looking into logarithmic returns, correlations, and betas of companies. We discovered compelling results that informed that Russian companies incurred severe losses, were not involved in insider trading and were the only ones that rebound in the short aftermath of war. To examine behaviour of stocks in China we applied the event study method and difference in difference empirical analysis method. Results showed that China as a neutral country is less affected by the sanctions. However, some Chinese companies benefited due to the shift of Russian economic transactions from Europe to Asia.