REGIONAL FINANCIAL SEGMENTATION IN THE UNITED-STATES

Responding to continuing discussions in this Journal regarding the importance of regional money supply and credit, a simple reduced-form regional money supply model is posited and an investigation of real regional money supplies is performed for several states around the country. Hypothesis tests are performed regarding the question of regional financial market segmentation, concluding that segmentation still exists in the United States. The empirical results also imply that interregional trade, presumably via the consequent constraint on regional banks, has at least as much effect on regional money supplies as Federal Reserve policies. These results lend further support for the assertion that regionally available money matters at the local level, and that regional analysis should continue to include regional money and credit as explanatory variables. The implications for policy makers are that: 1) national monetary policy cannot cure regional ills if the problems are manifested in regional industry mixes; and 2) some proposed banking reforms now being debated in Congress, i.e, nationwide branch banking and, particularly, industrial ownership of banks, are suspect. A healthy caution is warranted without more tests of these reforms.