Herding denotes how individuals act together in a group without any centralized direction. Herding is widely studied as it drives asset prices away from the fundamental value and there are concerns it leads to volatility, destabilizes the market and increases the fragility of the financial market. In this paper, a concise review of the literature of herding is provided. Various types of herding, its significance and occurrences along with the determinants are discussed. Various approaches used for measuring herding have been reviewed. The relationship of herding along with other variables such as market conditions, volatility, and liquidity is reviewed and studied. For the purpose of drafting the review paper, 79 papers for over three decades have been consulted. Further, future research directions are included for the benefit of the academicians, researchers and policymakers.

PurposeThe study examines herding in the Indian stock and commodity futures market including agricultural, metal and energy commodities. Herding is studied under various market conditions: rising and declining, high and low volatility. The study also examines spillover effects of herding.Design/methodology/approachThe study adapts the cross-sectional absolute deviation model given by Chang et al. (2000) to examine herding in Indian stock and commodity futures markets.FindingsThe results of the study indicate absence of herding among commodity futures under all market conditions except for the declining market where herding is present among energy futures. The investors investing in agricultural and energy commodities have a higher tendency to herd during high volatility days as compared to low volatility days. Further, the study of herding spillover effects indicates that the price fluctuations in metal commodities affect herding in agricultural and energy commodities.Research limitations/implicationsThe results can help market participants to diversify the risk by investing in agricultural, metal and energy futures along with the stocks.Originality/valueMajority of the previous studies explore herding among stocks and ignore commodities especially agricultural commodities. This study attempts to fill the gap by studying herding among various commodity futures. To the best of our knowledge this is the first study to explore herding spillover effects in the Indian stock and commodity futures market.