Financial and Real Sector Linkages: Evidence from India

Abstract

Financial and real sector linkages have been the subject of interest among economists since the global financial crisis. This paper investigates the cointegrating relationship and the causality between the financial and real sector in India for the period 1982 to 2015 using time series annual data. The financial sector is proxied by liquid liabilities, domestic credit given by financial sector and market capitalisation as percentages of GDP. The real sector is proxied by real GDP with net capital formation and real interest rate used as control variables. The Augmented Dickey Fuller and Phillips Perron tests show that all variables are stationary at first differences. The Johansen cointegration test reports cointegrating relations between financial and real sector when domestic credit given by financial sector and liquid liabilities as percentages of GDP represent the financial sector. However, the error correction model gives the speed of adjustment between the financial and real sector only when domestic credit as a percentage of GDP is used as an indicator of financial sector. The Granger test reveals that there is a unidirectional causality from real to financial sector when domestic credit and liquid liabilities as percentages of GDP represent the financial sector. We find evidence of a demand following hypothesis or growth driven finance hypothesis. These results have significant inferences for economists and policy makers.