Regional integration, capital mobility and financial intermediation revisited: Application of general to specific method in panel data

• General to specific procedure in panel data.
• Regional integrations improve international capital mobility.
• Links between regional integration, financial intermediaries and productivity.

We utilize the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle to investigate the impact of regional integration agreements (AFTA, EU, EFTA, CARTAGENA, MERCOSUR and NAFTA) on the international capital mobility. In doing so, we employed a novel empirical technique i.e. the general to specific (GETS) method of Hendry (1995) to estimate the cointegrating equation and dynamic adjustments in panel data. Using the classical fixed and random effects estimators, we estimate the long- and short-run effects in the same model and we show that it is possible to estimate the lagged adjustment process. The procedure used is general enough to allow for the presence of endogeneity, heteroscedasticity, serial correlation and cross-sectional dependence in the residuals. Our findings show that the estimate of saving retention has declined and the speed of adjustment has increased in the post-integration period, implying that the international mobility of capital has increased in these countries. Moreover, our findings reveal that regional integrations stimulate financial intermediation, which in turn, improves real productivity.