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Unemployment risk and precautionary wealth: evidence from households' balance sheets

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Author Info
Christopher D. Carroll
Karen E. Dynan
Spencer D. Krane

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Abstract

Recent empirical work on the strength of precautionary saving has yielded widely varying conclusions. The mixed findings may reflect a number of difficulties in proxying uncertainty, executing instrumental variables estimation, and incorporating theoretical restrictions into empirical models. For each of these problems, this paper uses existing best-practice techniques and some new strategies to relate unemployment probabilities from the Current Population Survey to net worth data from the Survey of Consumer Finances. We find that increases in unemployment risk do not boost saving by households with relatively low permanent income, but that a statistically significant precautionary effect emerges for households at a moderate level of income. This finding is robust to certain restrictions on the sample, but not robust across measures of wealth: We generally find a significant precautionary motive in broad measures of wealth that include home equity, but not in narrower subaggregates comprised only of financial assets and liabilities.

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Paper provided by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) in its series Finance and Economics Discussion Series with number 1999-15.

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Date of creation: 1999
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:1999-15

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Related research
Keywords: Consumer behavior ; Saving and investment ; Unemployment;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Mervyn A. King & Louis Dicks-Mireaux, 1982. "Asset Holdings and the Life Cycle," NBER Working Papers 0614, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Caballero, Ricardo J., 1990. "Consumption puzzles and precautionary savings," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 113-136, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1989. "Consumption, Income and Interest Rates: Reinterpreting the Time Series Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 185-246 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1979. "Labor Market Dynamics and Unemployemnt: A Reconsideration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 10(1979-1), pages 13-72. [Downloadable!]
  5. Glenn R. Hubbard & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, . "Precautionary Saving and Social Insurance," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 3-95, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    Other versions:
  6. Karen E. Dynan, 1993. "How prudent are consumers?," Working Paper Series / Economic Activity Section 135, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  7. Wendy E. Dunn, 1998. "Unemployment risk, precautionary saving, and durable goods purchase decisions," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1998-49, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  8. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio & Terlizzese, Daniele, 1992. "Earnings uncertainty and precautionary saving," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 307-337, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Christopher D Carroll & Wendy E Dunn, 1997. "Unemployment Expectations Jumping (Ss) Triggers and Household Balance Sheets," Economics Working Paper Archive 386, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
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  10. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Optimal Consumption with Stochastic Income: Deviations from Certainty Equivalence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 104(2), pages 275-98, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Lusardi, Annamaria, 1997. "Precautionary saving and subjective earnings variance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 319-326, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Karen E. Dynan & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2004. "Do the Rich Save More?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 397-444, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Richard T. Curtin & Thomas Juster & James N. Morgan, 1989. "Survey Estimates of Wealth: An Assessment of Quality," NBER Chapters, in: The Measurement of Saving, Investment, and Wealth, pages 473-552 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  14. Christopher D. Carroll, 1992. "The Buffer-Stock Theory of Saving: Some Macroeconomic Evidence," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1992-2), pages 61-156. [Downloadable!]
  15. Carroll, Christopher D & Rhee, Byung-Kun & Rhee, Changyong, 1994. "Are There Cultural Effects on Saving? Some Cross-Sectional Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(3), pages 685-99, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Lawrence F. Katz, 1992. "Regional Evolutions," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1992-1), pages 1-76. [Downloadable!]
  17. R. Glenn Hubbard & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, 1994. "The Importance of Precautionary Motives in Explaining Individual and Aggregate Saving," NBER Working Papers 4516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Kuehlwein, Michael, 1991. "A test for the presence of precautionary saving," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 471-475, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Laibson, David, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(2), pages 443-77, May.
  20. Carroll, Christopher D, 1994. "How Does Future Income Affect Current Consumption?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(1), pages 111-47, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Pagan, Adrian, 1984. "Econometric Issues in the Analysis of Regressions with Generated Regressors," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 25(1), pages 221-47, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Christopher D. Carroll & Andrew A. Samwick, 1998. "How Important Is Precautionary Saving?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 410-419, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  24. Eric M. Engen & Jonathan Gruber, 1995. "Unemployment Insurance and Precautionary Saving," NBER Working Papers 5252, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. repec:att:wimass:199722 is not listed on IDEAS
  26. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 1990. "The Effect of Age at School Entry on Educational Attainment: An Application of Instrumental Variables with Moments from Two Samples," NBER Working Papers 3571, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  27. repec:fth:harver:1435 is not listed on IDEAS
  28. Jonathan Gruber, 1994. "The Consumption Smoothing Benefits of Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 4750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  29. King, M A & Dicks-Mireaux, L-D L, 1982. "Asset Holdings and the Life-Cycle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(366), pages 247-67, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  30. Carroll, Christopher D. & Samwick, Andrew A., 1997. "The nature of precautionary wealth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 41-71, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  31. Dynan, Karen E, 1993. "How Prudent Are Consumers?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 1104-13, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  32. Diamond, P. A. & Hausman, J. A., 1984. "Individual retirement and savings behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 81-114. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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