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Why are Saving Rates of Urban Households in China Rising?

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Author Info
Marcos Chamon
Eswar Prasad

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Abstract

From 1995 to 2005, the average urban household saving rate in China rose by 7 percentage points, to about one quarter of disposable income. We use household-level data to explain why households are postponing consumption despite rapid income growth. Tracing cohorts over time indicates a virtual absence of consumption smoothing over the life cycle. Saving rates have increased across all demographic groups although the age profile of savings has an unusual pattern in recent years, with younger and older households having relatively high saving rates. We argue that these patterns are best explained by the rising private burden of expenditures on housing, education, and health care. These effects and precautionary motives may have been amplified by financial underdevelopment, as reflected in constraints on borrowing against future income and low returns on financial assets.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14546.

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Date of creation: Dec 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14546

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
O16 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Angus Deaton & Christina Paxson, 2000. "Growth and Saving Among Individuals and Households," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 212-225, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Angus Deaton & Christina H. Paxson, 1993. "Saving, Growth, and Aging in Taiwan," NBER Working Papers 4330, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Keane, Michael P. & Prasad, Eswar S., 2006. "Changes in the structure of earnings during the Polish transition," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 389-427, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Carroll, Christopher D. & Weil, David N., 1994. "Saving and growth: a reinterpretation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 133-192, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. McKenzie, David J., 2006. "Precautionary saving and consumption growth in Taiwan," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 84-101. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Meng, Xin, 2003. "Unemployment, consumption smoothing, and precautionary saving in urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 465-485, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Franco Modigliani & Shi Larry Cao, 2004. "The Chinese Saving Puzzle and the Life-Cycle Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(1), pages 145-170, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. 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)
  9. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln, 2008. "The Response of Household Saving to the Large Shock of German Reunification," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2008-21, Center for Retirement Research, revised Dec 2008. [Downloadable!]
  10. Christopher D Carroll, 1990. "Buffer-Stock Saving and the Life Cycle/Permanent Income Hypothesis," Economics Working Paper Archive 371, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics, revised Aug 1996.
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  11. Deaton, Angus, 1991. "Saving and Liquidity Constraints," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(5), pages 1221-48, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Jonathan A. Parker, 2002. "Consumption Over the Life Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 47-89, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Paxson, Christina, 1996. "Saving and growth: Evidence from micro data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 255-288, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco, 1994. "Saving, Growth, and Liquidity Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(1), pages 83-109, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Charles Yuji Horioka & Junmin Wan, 2007. "The Determinants of Household Saving in China: A Dynamic Panel Analysis of Provincial Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(8), pages 2077-2096, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Nicola Fuchs-Schundeln, 2008. "The Response of Household Saving to the Large Shock of German Reunification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1798-1828, December. [Downloadable!]
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Jean-Paul Fitoussi & Francesco Saraceno, 2008. "The Intergenerational Content of Social Spending: Health Care and Sustainable Growth in China," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2008-27, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE). [Downloadable!]
  2. Pasricha, Gurnain Kaur, 2008. "Imperfect Competition in Financial Markets and Capital Controls: A Model and a Test," MPRA Paper 12125, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  3. Guonan Ma & Zhou Haiwen, 2009. "China’s evolving external wealth and rising creditor position," BIS Working Papers 286, Bank for International Settlements. [Downloadable!]
  4. Shang-Jin Wei & Xiaobo Zhang, 2009. "The Competitive Saving Motive: Evidence from Rising Sex Ratios and Savings Rates in China," NBER Working Papers 15093, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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