Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Marital risk and capital accumulation

Contents:

Author Info

  • Luis Cubeddu
  • Jose-Victor Rios-Rull

Abstract

Between the sixties and the late eighties the percentages of low-saving single-parent households and people living alone have grown dramatically at the expense of high-saving married households, while the household saving rate has declined equally dramatically. A preliminary analysis of population composition and savings by household type seems to indicate that about half of the decline in savings is due to demographic change. We construct a model with agents changing marital status, but where the saving behavior of the households can adjust to the properties of the demographic process. We find that the demographic changes that reduce the number of married households (mainly higher divorce and higher illegitimacy) induce all household types to save more and that the effect on the aggregate saving rate is minuscule. We conclude that the drop in savings since the sixties is not due to changes in household composition.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr235.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in its series Staff Report with number 235.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 1997
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:235

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 90 Hennepin Avenue, P.O. Box 291, Minneapolis, MN 55480-0291
Phone: (612) 204-5000
Web page: http://minneapolisfed.org/
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Email:
Web: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/

Related research

Keywords: Saving and investment;

References

No references listed on IDEAS
You can help add them by filling out this form.

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Divorce risk is good for the savings rate
    by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-02-23 15:53:00
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Matthew Chambers & Carlos Garriga & Don E. Schlagenhauf, 2007. "Accounting for changes in the homeownership rate," Working Paper 2007-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
  2. Luis M. Cubeddu, 1996. "The intra-generational redistributive effects of social security," Economics Working Papers 168, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
  3. Aiyagari, S. Rao & Greenwood, Jeremy & Seshadri, Ananth, 2002. "Efficient Investment in Children," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 290-321, February.
  4. Jose-Victor Rios-Rull, 1997. "Computation of equilibria in heterogeneous agent models," Staff Report 231, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  5. David Domeij & Paul Klein, 2002. "Private Pensions: To What Extent Do They Account for Swedish Wealth Inequality?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(3), pages 503-534, July.
  6. Gonzalez, Libertad & Özcan, Berkay, 2008. "The Risk of Divorce and Household Saving Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 3726, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  7. Aydogan Ulker, 2009. "Wealth Holdings and Portfolio Allocation of the Elderly: The Role of Marital History," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 90-108, March.
  8. Yunhee Chang & Ki Lee, 2006. "Household Debt and Marital Instability: Evidence from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 675-691, December.
  9. Jose-Victor Rios-Rull, 2001. "The Research Agenda: Determinants of Inequality," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(1), November.

Lists

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:
  1. Economic Logic blog

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:235

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Diane Rosenberger).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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