IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eps/ecriwp/9754.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Review of Policy Options for Monitoring Household Saving

Author

Listed:
  • Bouyon, Sylvain

Abstract

A proper understanding and monitoring of household saving are necessary to conduct appropriate macroeconomic policies aiming at a balanced economic recovery in the EU-15. The process of monitoring household saving is twofold: on the one hand, it concerns the liquidity level of the household savings portfolio (liquidity approach); and on the other hand, it places emphasis on the saving rates of households (saving rates approach). Within the liquidity approach, in theory, each of the household motives (target saving, precautionary saving and pension saving) is related to specific saving products. However, inadequate financial education and low confidence in banking systems can distort the relationship of saving motives to saving products and lead to a sub-optimal savings portfolio, with poor yields and excess liquidity (especially with regards to pension saving). Nevertheless, overall, yield spreads do have an impact on the corresponding relative savings market shares, confirming the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission mechanisms into the liquidity levels of household savings portfolios. Regarding the saving rates approach, data show differentiated dynamics across EU-15 countries, partly owing to specific local habits and developments in financial markets. The persistent saving ratio differentials across countries, which also mirror differentiated propensities to accumulate target saving, could be partially reduced by the design of regulations whose primary goal is to improve the overall attractiveness of mortgage and consumer credits. In addition, since 2007, consistently significant beta-convergence observed in the results of the panel data regressions indicates that the need for balance sheet repair was stronger for countries with low saving ratios in the years preceding the financial crisis. The absence of correlation between saving ratios and different types of saving yields suggests the poor transmission of monetary policies in the trade-off between private consumption and saving. Conversely, the results confirm the prominent role played by the precautionary motive during the financial crisis of 2008-09, which is reflected in the strong impact of unemployment rates and housing prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Bouyon, Sylvain, 2014. "A Review of Policy Options for Monitoring Household Saving," ECRI Papers 9754, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:eps:ecriwp:9754
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ceps.eu/system/files/ECRI%20RR_16.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ashoka Mody & Franziska Ohnsorge & Damiano Sandri, 2012. "Precautionary Savings in the Great Recession," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 60(1), pages 114-138, April.
    2. Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 2010. "The Consumption Response to Income Changes," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 479-506, September.
    3. Carroll, Christopher D., 2009. "Precautionary saving and the marginal propensity to consume out of permanent income," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 780-790, September.
    4. Ángel Estrada & Jordi Galí & David López-Salido, 2013. "Patterns of Convergence and Divergence in the Euro Area," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(4), pages 601-630, December.
    5. Miles Kimball & Philippe Weil, 2009. "Precautionary Saving and Consumption Smoothing across Time and Possibilities," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(2‐3), pages 245-284, March.
    6. Patricia Apps & Yuri Andrienko & Ray Rees, 2014. "Risk and Precautionary Saving in Two-Person Households," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 1040-1046, March.
    7. Campbell, John Y. & Cocco, Joao F., 2007. "How do house prices affect consumption? Evidence from micro data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 591-621, April.
    8. Lopez, Claude & Papell, David H., 2012. "Convergence of Euro area inflation rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1440-1458.
    9. Hubbard, R Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P, 1995. "Precautionary Saving and Social Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(2), pages 360-399, April.
    10. Chmelar, Ales, 2013. "Household Debt and the European Crisis," ECRI Papers 8239, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    11. Hryshko, Dmytro & José Luengo-Prado, María & Sørensen, Bent E., 2010. "House prices and risk sharing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 975-987, November.
    12. Jonathan Huntley & Valentina Michelangeli, 2014. "Can Tax Rebates Stimulate Consumption Spending in a Life-Cycle Model?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 162-189, January.
    13. Engen, Eric M. & Gruber, Jonathan, 2001. "Unemployment insurance and precautionary saving," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 545-579, June.
    14. Martin Feldstein, 1995. "The Effects of Tax-Based Saving Incentives on Government Revenue and National Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 475-494.
    15. Zhao, Kai, 2014. "Social security and the rise in health spending," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 21-37.
    16. Hubbard, R Glenn & Skinner, Jonathan & Zeldes, Stephen P, 1994. "Expanding the Life-Cycle Model: Precautionary Saving and Public Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 174-179, May.
    17. Chmelar, Ales, 2011. "Household Debt in Europe�s Periphery: The dangers of a prolonged recession," ECRI Papers 7478, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bouyon, Sylvain & Musmeci, Roberto, 2016. "Two Dimensions of Combating Over-Indebtedness: Consumer protection and financial stability," ECRI Papers 11930, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    2. Daniel Ofori-Sasu & John Kuwornu & Gloria Clarissa Dzeha & Baah Aye Kusi, 2022. "Risk behaviour and insurance efficiency: the role of ownership and regulations from an emerging economies," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(7), pages 1-30, July.
    3. Katarzyna Kochaniak, 2016. "Low interest rates - do they revise household saving motives in the Euro area?," "e-Finanse", University of Information Technology and Management, Institute of Financial Research and Analysis, vol. 12(1), pages 43-56, June.
    4. Katarzyna Kochaniak, 2016. "High value household deposits in the Eurozone: single post-crisis approach vs. national facts," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 47(6), pages 529-552.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Jappelli, Tullio, 2015. "Wealth shocks, unemployment shocks and consumption in the wake of the Great Recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 21-41.
    2. Chou, Shin-Yi & Liu, Jin-Tan & Hammitt, James K., 2003. "National Health Insurance and precautionary saving: evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 1873-1894, September.
    3. Raj Chetty & Amy Finkelstein, 2012. "Social Insurance: Connecting Theory to Data," NBER Working Papers 18433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Yuliya Demyanyk & Dmytro Hryshko & Maria Jose Luengo-Prado & Bent E. Sorensen, 2015. "The rise and fall of consumption in the '00s," Working Papers 15-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    5. Yulei Luo & Jun Nie & Penghui Yin, 2022. "Attention Allocation and Heterogenous Consumption Responses," Research Working Paper RWP 22-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    6. Davis, Morris A. & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2015. "Housing, Finance, and the Macroeconomy," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 753-811, Elsevier.
    7. Wenli Li & Haiyong Liu & Fang Yang & Rui Yao, 2016. "Housing Over Time And Over The Life Cycle: A Structural Estimation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1237-1260, November.
    8. Bar Light, 2018. "Precautionary Saving in a Markovian Earnings Environment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 138-147, July.
    9. Fang Yang & Wenli Li & Haiyong Liu & Rui Yao, 2014. "Housing over Time and over the Life Cycle: A Structural Estimation," Departmental Working Papers 2014-12, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    10. J. Atsu Amegashie & Michael Batu, 2020. "The Welfare State and International Remittances," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 33-51, Spring.
    11. Rostam-Afschar, Davud & Yao, Jiaxiong, 2017. "Consumption Insurance, Welfare, and Optimal Progressive Taxation," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168179, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Lugilde, Alba & Bande, Roberto & Riveiro, Dolores, 2017. "Precautionary Saving: a review of the theory and the evidence," MPRA Paper 77511, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Michele Limosani & Emanuele Millemaci, 2014. "Precautionary savings of agents with heterogeneous risk aversion," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(20), pages 2342-2361, July.
    14. J. Atsu Amegashie & Michael Batu, 2015. "Wider Boundaries: The Welfare State and International Remittances," CESifo Working Paper Series 5456, CESifo.
    15. Kristy Fan & Tyler J. Fisher & Andrew A. Samwick, 2021. "The Insurance Value of Financial Aid," NBER Working Papers 28669, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Garcia-Hiernaux, Alfredo & Gonzalez-Perez, Maria T. & Guerrero, David E., 2023. "Eurozone prices: A tale of convergence and divergence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    17. Bartzsch Nikolaus, 2008. "Precautionary Saving and Income Uncertainty in Germany – New Evidence from Microdata," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 228(1), pages 5-24, February.
    18. Mariacristina De Nardi & Eric French & John Bailey Jones, 2016. "Medicaid Insurance in Old Age," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(11), pages 3480-3520, November.
    19. Jonathan Heathcote & Fabrizio Perri, 2018. "Wealth and Volatility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 2173-2213.
    20. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante & Justin Weidner, 2014. "The Wealthy Hand-to-Mouth," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 45(1 (Spring), pages 77-153.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eps:ecriwp:9754. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Margarita Minkova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepssbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.