India's weak investment: empirical estimation at corporate and household level

Investment has remained a predominant source for enhancing the productivity led economic growth in an economy. Indian economy has noted slowdown in investment especially in private sector since 2011, even in the presence of high growth trajectory, eased financing conditions, accommodative monetary policy and eased business regulations. This puts forth ample scope for research enquiry to understand the explaining factors behind this disconnect. Moreover, the investment slowdown mainly led by the household sector has been overlooked by the existing literature. In this background, this paper aims to empirically investigate the key drivers of the weak private investment in India including the household investment. Study employs ARDL bound-testing approach for annual data (1970-2019) as well as quarterly data (2004q1 to 2019q4). The estimation using the later period helps in getting better insight about the ongoing public debate of investment slowdown. Empirical evidence suggests that the gaps of financial resources, monetary policy, fiscal policy, economic uncertainty, debt burden and fluctuating exchange rate are key derivers for the corporate and household investment in India.