What Drives Private Saving Across the World?

Saving rates display considerable variation across countries and over time. This paper investigates the factors behind these broad saving disparities using a large cross-country time-series data set constructed for the World Bank Saving project. The paper assesses empirically the policy and non-policy determinants of saving. It follows the empirical literature on saving by using an encompassing empirical approach including a number of potentially relevant saving determinants. However, the paper extends the literature in several dimensions. It uses the largest data set on aggregate saving measures assembled to date. It explores both national and private saving determinants. It uses panel instrumental variable techniques that allow correcting for endogeneity and heterogeneity through "internal" instruments. Finally, it performs a variety of robustness checks to changes in estimation procedures, data samples and model specification.