Financial Intermediation and Growth: Bank-Based versus Market-Based Systems

The article empirically evaluates the role of financial intermediation in India’s economic development. An assessment of various indicators of financial development reveals that both the bank-based and market-based intermediation processes have undergone remarkable improvements in the last six decades. While credit disbursement by Indian banks has increased sharply in the past decades, it is still below the world average level and even below the level of its emerging market and developing economies (EDEs) peers. However, in recent years, the market capitalisation of the Indian stock market has increased indicating greater reliance on market-based sources of funding. One-way Granger causality from private sector credit to real GDP confirms the supply-leading process of bank intermediation, while no causality was found between stock market capitalisation and real GDP. The ARDL co-integration test suggests that both the bank-based and market-based financial deepening have positive roles in driving India’s economic development, while the former has a stronger role in driving India’s economic growth. The findings indicate that in a relatively bank-centric financial sector, Indian banks have the potential of further channelisation of credit to productive sectors of the economy.JEL Classification: G2, O16, C32