Capital mobility in developing countries: evidence from panel data

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that the use of panel data can shed some light on the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle. The use of panel data would bring in two advantages. First, it would avoid the bias towards low capital mobility brought by the use of time-averaged data. Second, it would make possible to take into account specific effects (heterogeneity) like a country's size. Pooling annual data for the period 1960-1996 for 29 developing countries, the estimated impact of saving on investment is considerably smaller and it is possible to conclude that there is some degree of capital mobility in developing countries. Therefore, the high estimated saving-investment correlation seems to be due more to the existence of specific individual country effects than to capital immobility. The coefficient stability through time remains a puzzle though.