Credit channel of monetary policy transmission: Evidence from India

The present study explores the effectiveness of the credit channel of monetary policy transmission in India from the perspective of magnitude, timing, and composition puzzles. To validate, further investigation of the effectiveness of the balance sheet channel and bank lending channel using the corporate cash flows and interest rate spreads, respectively, has been done. The study employs the structural vector autoregression model using the long-time quarterly series sample period from June 1998 to June 2022. The findings show that the anomalies concerning magnitude, timing, and composition effect do not exhibit a strong presence in the Indian context. The analysis of the weighted average call money rate and coverage ratio suggests a weak presence of the balance sheet channel in India with a weak negative correlation of 0.2943 (p < 0.05). The overall behavior of spread analysis also shows a weak presence of the bank lending channel in India. Although some presence of the bank lending channel is seen on banks’ managed liability side, the effect of external finance premium is not reflected in the lending rates with a correlation of 0.0577 (p > 0.05) between prime lending rate spread and weighted average call money rate spread. From the evidence, the study concludes the weak presence of the credit channel in India. Therefore, the monetary authorities might have to rely on other channels or may devise other unconventional mechanisms like Operation Twist and Long-Term Repo Operations observed during the COVID-19 pandemic to steer the real economy.