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This study investigates the relationship between working capital investment (WCI) and firm value for Indian manufacturing firms using excess net working capital (NWC) and Tobin's Q as a measure of WCI and firm value, respectively. The study also examines whether firms use the cash released from excess investment in working capital to make long-term investments.

The sample comprises 834 Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) listed Indian manufacturing firms whose data from April 2010 to March 2020 are analyzed using a fixed-effect panel regression analysis approach.

The empirical results show that excess NWC influences firm value negatively and significantly. However, the nature of the relationship becomes nonlinear upon dividing the sample into positive excess NWC and negative excess NWC. The findings from the study also reveal that firms redistribute cash freed from positive excess NWC for long-term investments to improve their value without impacting the corresponding risk.

Overall, the results suggest that firms with positive excess NWC can enhance their valuations by building adequate long-term investments from surplus WCI funds.

To the authors’ best knowledge, studies on this issue have primarily focused on developed economies. No study seems to have been done on this subject in the emerging South Asian economies. The present study is the first to bridge the research gap by investigating the relationship between excess WCI and firm value for manufacturing firms in India. Moreover, it examines whether a positive excess NWC reduction translates into corporate investments (CI).

This research unfolds a holistic association between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and three important markets (oil, stock and gold) in the Indian context. To do same, the current study uses the monthly dataset of each variable spanning from November 2005 to March 2022.

The authors have portrayed the wavelet-based coherence, correlation and covariance plots to explore the interaction between EPU and markets' behavior. Then, a wavelet-based quantile on quantile regression model and wavelet-based Granger causality has been applied to examine the cause-and-effect relation and causality between the EPU and markets.

The authors’ findings report that the Indian crude oil buyers do not need to consider Indian EPU while negotiating the oil deals in the short term and medium term. However, in case of the long-term persistence of uncertainty, it becomes difficult for a buyer to negotiate oil deals at cheap rates. EPU causes unfavorable fluctuation in the stock market because macroeconomic decisions have a substantial impact on it. The authors have also found that gold is a gauge for economic imbalances and an accurate observer of inflation resulting from uncertainty, showing a safe haven attribute.

The authors’ work is original in two aspects. First, their study solely focused on the Indian economy to investigate the impact and causal power of Indian EPU on three major components of the Indian economy: oil, stock and gold. Second, they will provide their findings after analyzing data at a very microlevel using a wavelet-based quantile on quantile and wavelet-based Granger causality.