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Precautionary Saving Unfettered

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Author Info
James Feigenbaum () (University of Pittsburgh)

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Abstract

Precautionary saving has engendered much interest, both because of the possibility that it can explain why, contrary to the basic Lifecycle/Permanent-Income Hypothesis, consumption roughly tracks income over the lifecycle and because of speculation that precautionary saving might account for a large fraction of aggregate saving. However, recent findings have indicated that the effects of precautionary saving are much less significant than was first thought. Early researchers did not take into account general equilibrium effects. Furthermore, most research into precautionary saving has employed buffer-stock saving models that also incorporate a borrowing constraint (either imposed exogenously or resulting endogenously from assumptions about the income process). After separating out the effects of uncertainty from the effects of the borrowing constraint, one finds that most buffer-stock saving can be accounted for by the borrowing constraint. However, buffer-stock models make the simple but unrealistic assumption that absolutely no borrowing can occur. While it has generally been assumed that borrowing constraints and precautionary saving are complementary, when these two frictions operate simultaneously a tight no-borrowing constraint will dominate. Here, we show that when borrowing is unconstrained, precautionary saving can, indeed, have significant effects. Moreover, a general equilibrium model of precautionary saving and unconstrained borrowing can better explain the lifecycle consumption profile than the corresponding buffer-stock saving model

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Society for Computational Economics in its series Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 with number 29.

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Date of creation: 04 Jul 2006
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Handle: RePEc:sce:scecfa:29

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Related research
Keywords: precautionary saving; lifecycle consumption; borrowing constraints;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

References listed on IDEAS
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. Christopher D Carroll & Miles S Kimball, 2001. "Liquidity Constraints and Precautionary Saving," Economics Working Paper Archive 455, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  2. 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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  3. Aiyagari, S Rao, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(3), pages 659-84, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. James Feigenbaum & Geng Li, 2008. "Lifecycle Dynamics of Income Uncertainty and Consumption," Working Papers 360, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2008. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. T. Findley & Frank Caliendo, 2008. "The behavioral justification for public pensions: a survey," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 409-425, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Johanna Francis, 2008. "Wealth and the Capitalist Spirit," Fordham Economics Discussion Paper Series dp2008-10, Fordham University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. James Feigenbaum & Frank Caliendo & Emin Gahramanov, 2008. "Optimal Irrational Behavior," Working Papers 368, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics, revised Sep 2008. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. James Feigenbaum & Geng Li, 2008. "A Nonparametric Characterization of Income Uncertainty over the Lifecycle," Working Papers 359, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2008. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-13.

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