IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bofecr/32022.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Has there been a change in household saving behavior in the low inflation and interest rate environment?

Author

Listed:
  • Oinonena, Sami
  • Virén, Matti E. E.

Abstract

This paper examines whether the determinants of household saving have changed over time and whether they are the same across countries. Using a cross-country data for 34 OECD countries for the 1970-2019, we find that traditional saving rate specifications still perform strik ingly well and can explain the recent changes in household saving rates. As for the cross country differences in equilibrium saving rates, we have less success even though the basic estimating equation seems to fit reasonably well to individual country samples. We found that household saving is still very sensitive to changes in inflation and real income growth. Thus, decline in the household saving rate in the 1990s can mainly be attributed to these variables. Obviously, a decline of real interest rate has also pushed down the saving rate. Households seem to have reacted to changes in public sector as well as corporate sector saving so that there has been nontrivial degree of saving substitutability.

Suggested Citation

  • Oinonena, Sami & Virén, Matti E. E., 2022. "Has there been a change in household saving behavior in the low inflation and interest rate environment?," BoF Economics Review 3/2022, Bank of Finland.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bofecr:32022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/261370/1/1809694418.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leandro Medina & Friedrich Schneider, 2019. "Shedding Light on the Shadow Economy: A Global Database and the Interaction with the Official One," CESifo Working Paper Series 7981, CESifo.
    2. Michael H. Stierle & Stijn Rocher, 2015. "Household saving rates in the EU: Why do they differ so much?," European Economy - Discussion Papers 005, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    3. Robin Boadway & David Wildasin, 1994. "Taxation and savings: a survey," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 19-63, August.
    4. Campbell, John Y, 1987. "Does Saving Anticipate Declining Labor Income? An Alternative Test of the Permanent Income Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(6), pages 1249-1273, November.
    5. Deaton, Angus S, 1977. "Involuntary Saving through Unanticipated Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(5), pages 899-910, December.
    6. Mr. Tim Callen & Mr. Christian Thimann, 1997. "Empirical Determinants of Household Saving: Evidence From OECD Countries," IMF Working Papers 1997/181, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Hansen, Hermann-Josef, 1996. "The impact of interest rates on private consumption in Germany," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1996,03e, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    2. Philemon Kwame Opoku, 2019. "The Short-Run and Long-Run Determinants of Household Saving:Evidence from OECD countries," Working Papers REM 2019/0110, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    3. Romero-Ávila, Diego, 2009. "Are OECD consumption-income ratios stationary after all?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 107-117, January.
    4. Adema, Yvonne & Pozzi, Lorenzo, 2015. "Business cycle fluctuations and household saving in OECD countries: A panel data analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 214-233.
    5. Philemon Kwame Opoku, 0. "The Short-Run and Long-Run Determinants of Household Saving: Evidence from OECD Economies," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 0, pages 1-35.
    6. Philemon Kwame Opoku, 2020. "The Short-Run and Long-Run Determinants of Household Saving: Evidence from OECD Economies," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(3), pages 430-464, September.
    7. Hansen, Hermann-Josef, 1996. "Der Einfluß der Zinsen auf den privaten Verbrauch in Deutschland," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1996,03, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    8. Willem Vanlaer & Samantha Bielen & Wim Marneffe, 2020. "Consumer Confidence and Household Saving Behaviors: A Cross-Country Empirical Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(2), pages 677-721, January.
    9. Palumbo, Michael & Rudd, Jeremy & Whelan, Karl, 2006. "On the Relationships Between Real Consumption, Income, and Wealth," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 24, pages 1-11, January.
    10. PAUL CASHIN & C. JOHN McDERMOTT, 1998. "Are Australia's Current Account Deficits Excessive?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 74(227), pages 346-361, December.
    11. Mr. Jacques A Miniane & Benoît Mercereau, 2004. "Challenging the Empirical Evidence From Present Value Models of the Current Account," IMF Working Papers 2004/106, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Emmanuel U. Haruna, 2023. "The multidimensional effect of financial development on the shadow economy in Africa: A dynamic panel analysis approach," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 327-365, May.
    13. Mr. Christopher Carroll & Mr. Martin Sommer & Mr. Jiri Slacalek, 2012. "Dissecting Saving Dynamics: Measuring Wealth, Precautionary, and Credit Effects," IMF Working Papers 2012/219, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Kim, H. Youn, 2017. "The permanent income hypothesis, transitional dynamics, and excess sensitivity of consumption," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 10-25.
    15. Neil R. Ericsson, 2021. "Dynamic Econometrics in Action: A Biography of David F. Hendry," International Finance Discussion Papers 1311, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. Alessie, Rob & Lusardi, Annamaria, 1997. "Saving and income smoothing: Evidence from panel data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1251-1279, July.
    17. Ndoya, Hermann & Okere, Donald & Belomo, Marie laure & Atangana, Melissa, 2023. "Does ICTs decrease the spread of informal economy in Africa?," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2).
    18. Pierre Dubois & Bruno Jullien & Thierry Magnac, 2008. "Formal and Informal Risk Sharing in LDCs: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(4), pages 679-725, July.
    19. Bussière, Matthieu & Karadimitropoulou, Aikaterini E. & León-Ledesma, Miguel A., 2021. "Current Account Dynamics And The Real Exchange Rate: Disentangling The Evidence," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(1), pages 28-58, January.
    20. van der Ploeg, F., 1989. "Risk aversion, intertemporal substitution and consumption : The CARA-LQ problem," Discussion Paper 1989-53, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    household saving; private saving; inflation; debt neutrality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth

    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:zbw:bofecr:32022. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bofgvfi.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.