Options provided to firms include: distribution to shareholders includes dividends and share buybacks. Purchasing financial assets includes M&A. Source: Bank of England Finance and Investment Decisions survey. And, on a related question, 80% of all the publicly owned firms agreed that financial market pressure for short-term returns to shareholders had been an obstacle to investment. Somewhat surprisingly, a significant proportion of the privately owned firms in the survey also saw financial market pressures as an obstacle to investment. This implies perhaps that financial market pressures for returns have a more general effect on the way investment returns are viewed by firms. The underinvesting firms also faced non-financial obstacles. Chief amongst these were greater risk aversion and greater uncertainty about the economic environment, which may include uncertainty about the returns to investment. I want to deal with these under my second set of observations around rates of return. At this stage, however, it is worth noting that for the group that underinvested, non-financial obstacles seem to have played as big a role as financial ones in their investment decisions. And, when looking at constraints on finance, using profits to finance investment appeared as important as constraints on borrowing. 9  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  9  As I noted earlier, the question of constraints on finance for investment in the UK has deep roots.
2 Hye Jin Rho, Hayley Brown, and Shawn Fremstad, A Basic Demographic Profile of Workers in Frontline  Industries, Center for Economic and Policy Research, April 2020, and Tiana N Rogers, Charles R Rogers, Elizabeth VanSant-Webb, Lily Y Gu, Bin Yan, Fares Qeadan, Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Mortality Among Essential Workers in the United States, World Medical & Health Policy, August 5, 2020. 3 Ruchi Avtar, Rajashri Chakrabarti, and Maxim Pinkovskiy, Understanding the Racial and Income Gap in COVID-  19: Essential Workers, Liberty Street Economics, January 12, 2021. 4 Ruchi Avtar, Rajashri Chakrabarti, and Maxim Pinkovskiy, Unequal Burdens: Racial Differences in ICU Stress  during the Third Wave of COVID-19, Liberty Street Economics, August 9, 2021. 5 New York Fed on Medium, New Initiative Focuses on the Social Determinants of Health, April 7, 2021. 6 New York Fed on Medium, Exploring the Economic Benefits of Broader Support for Mental Health, June 2, 2021. 7 New York Fed, The Fourth Trimester and Beyond: The Case for Broad Investments in Maternal and Child Health. 2/2  BIS central bankers' speeches