Risk spillover of international crude oil to China's firms: Evidence from granger causality across quantile

This paper investigates the extreme risk spillover of international crude oil to stock returns for 529 firms listed on the A-share market of the Shanghai stock exchange. We apply a kernel-based nonparametric method to test quantile-on-quantile Granger causality from crude oil to firm returns. From the perspective of firm-level analysis, the findings are outlined as follows. First, our empirical results provide strong evidence to suggest the asymmetry in the linkage of extreme movements from crude oil to firm returns, that is, the case of positive risk spillovers are more severe than the case of negative risk spillovers; In particular, the down-to-down risk spillover is the most serious case. This phenomenon unravels the strong driving force of economic cycles. Second, risk transmission from oil price shocks to firm returns depends on the firm's industry features. In addition to the usual focus on inter-industry difference, we also note the within-industry heterogeneity. Third, we confirm that China's refined oil pricing reform of March 27, 2013 has had intensifying effects on the negative spillovers from oil prices to firms. For investors, we emphasize not only the awareness of the predictive power between extreme risks from international crude oil to China's firms but also the existence of heterogeneity in these predictive abilities across firms. •This paper investigates the risk spillovers of crude oil to China's firms across extreme quantile levels.•Risk spillovers are asymmetric, and the positive spillovers are more significant than negative spillovers.•There are heterogeneous risk spillovers among inter- and within-industries.•Negative spillovers from crude oil to firms have become stronger since China's oil pricing reform.