IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/revinw/v55y2009i1p57-74.html

Top Incomes And National Savings

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Leigh
  • Alberto Posso

Abstract

The relationship between income inequality and national savings is theoretically ambiguous, and past empirical studies have delivered mixed results. We revisit the question using a newly available source of data on inequality: the income share of the richest 10 percent and the richest 1 percent. Combining this with historical data on national savings rates, we are able to investigate the relationship for 11 developed countries over the period 1921–2002. We find no consistent relationship between lagged top income shares and current savings rates, and our standard errors are small enough that we are able to reject more than modest effects in either direction. We view this as suggesting that inequality at the top end of the distribution is not a major driver of national savings rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Leigh & Alberto Posso, 2009. "Top Incomes And National Savings," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(1), pages 57-74, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:55:y:2009:i:1:p:57-74
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4991.2008.00303.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4991.2008.00303.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-4991.2008.00303.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roine, Jesper & Vlachos, Jonas & Waldenström, Daniel, 2009. "The long-run determinants of inequality: What can we learn from top income data?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 974-988, August.
    2. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    3. Himanshu, 2019. "Inequality in India: A review of levels and trends," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-42, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Tuominen Elina, 2016. "Changes or levels? Reassessment of the relationship between top-end inequality and growth," Working Papers 1609, Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, Economics.
    5. Xinhua Gu & Bihong Huang & Pui Sun Tam & Yang Zhang, 2015. "Inequality and Saving: Further Evidence from Integrated Economies," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 15-30, February.
    6. Behringer, Jan & van Treeck, Till, 2018. "Income distribution and the current account," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 238-254.
    7. Andrews Dan & Jencks Christopher & Leigh Andrew, 2011. "Do Rising Top Incomes Lift All Boats?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-45, January.
    8. Francisco Alvarez‐Cuadrado & Mayssun El‐Attar Vilalta, 2018. "Income Inequality and Saving," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(6), pages 1029-1061, December.
    9. Christian A Belabed & Thomas Theobald & Till van Treeck, 2018. "Income distribution and current account imbalances [Notes on capacity utilisation, distribution and accumulation]," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 42(1), pages 47-94.
    10. Schulz, Jan & Mayerhoffer, Daniel M., 2021. "A network approach to consumption," BERG Working Paper Series 173, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    11. Tuomas Malinen, 2011. "Income Inequality and Savings: A Reassessment of the Relationship in Cointegrated Panels," DEGIT Conference Papers c016_076, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    12. Hai‐Anh H. Dang & Peter Lanjouw, 2018. "Inequality trends and dynamics in India: The bird's-eye and the granular perspectives," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-189, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Jan Behringer & Till van Treeck, 2013. "Income distribution and current account: A sectoral perspective," IMK Working Paper 125-2013, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    14. Rémi Bazillier & Jérôme Hericourt, 2017. "The Circular Relationship Between Inequality, Leverage, And Financial Crises," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 463-496, April.
    15. Rémi Bazillier & Jérôme Hericourt, 2017. "The Circular Relationship Between Inequality, Leverage, And Financial Crises," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 463-496, April.
    16. Scheuermeyer, Philipp & Bofinger, Peter, 2016. "Income Distribution and Household Saving: A Non-Monotonic Relationship," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145901, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Busl, Claudia & Iliewa, Zwetelina & Jokisch, Sabine & Kappler, Marcus & Roscher, Thomas & Schindler, Felix & Schleer, Frauke, 2012. "Endbericht an das Bundesministerium der Finanzen zum Forschungsauftrag fe 11/11: "Sparen und Investieren vor dem Hintergrund des demografischen Wandels"," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, number 110554.
    18. Mohammed Ibrahim Gariba & Viktor Prokop, 2025. "Does Women in Politics and Income Inequality Affect Social and Economic Well-Being? Insights from OECD Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 16(2), pages 7612-7633, June.
    19. Tuomas, Malinen, 2011. "Inequality and savings: a reassesment of the relationship in cointegrated panels," MPRA Paper 33350, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Bofinger, Peter & Scheuermeyer, Philipp, 2016. "Income Distribution and Aggregate Saving: A Non-Monotonic Relationship," CEPR Discussion Papers 11435, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    21. Santo Milasi, 2014. "Top Income Shares and Budget Deficits," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, issue 1, pages 383-406, January-M.
    22. Hajamini, Mehdi, 2020. "Analyzing the Causal Relationships between Economic Growth, Income Inequality, and Transmission Channels: New Empirical Evidences from Iran," Journal of Money and Economy, Monetary and Banking Research Institute, Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, vol. 15(3), pages 313-342, July.
    23. Peter Bofinger & Philipp Scheuermeyer, 2019. "Income Distribution and Aggregate Saving: A Non‐Monotonic Relationship," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 872-907, December.
    24. Peter Lanjouw & Hai-Anh Dang, 2018. "Inequality trends and dynamics in India: The bird’s-eye and the granular perspectives," WIDER Working Paper Series 189, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • O50 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - General

    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:bla:revinw:v:55:y:2009:i:1:p:57-74. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iariwea.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.