IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mof/journl/ppr14_04_10.html

The Discrepancy Between the Household Saving Rates in Micro and Macro Statistics: An Adjustment Method

Author

Listed:
  • Takashi Unayama

    (Associate professor, Hitotsubashi University; Senior Research Fellow, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance)

  • Yasutaka Yoneta

    (Ph.D. candidate, Hitotsubashi University; Visiting Scholar, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance)

Abstract

The household saving rates in the “System of National Accounts (SNA)” and the “Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES)”, which were at the nearly same level in 1980, has deviated significantly after that. In 2015, the difference range was 25.9%. In this paper, we have identified the reasons for the discrepancies between the two statistics. The average difference over the period from 1994 to 2015 is 21.3 percentage point, and 93.2% of them can be explained with the identified factors: (1) differences in coverages of each survey; (2) differences in the concept of income and consumption; and (3) non-sampling errors in the FIES. While it has been known that these factors can explain most of the differences, our results confirm that the discussions are still valid with the 2008 SNA, which was newly introduced in Japan.

Suggested Citation

  • Takashi Unayama & Yasutaka Yoneta, 2018. "The Discrepancy Between the Household Saving Rates in Micro and Macro Statistics: An Adjustment Method," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 14(4), pages 765-776, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:mof:journl:ppr14_04_10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mof.go.jp/english/pri/publication/pp_review/ppr14_04_10.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Melvin Stephens & Takashi Unayama, 2011. "The Consumption Response to Seasonal Income: Evidence from Japanese Public Pension Benefits," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 86-118, October.
    2. Hayashi, Fumio & Ito, Takatoshi & Slemrod, Joel, 1988. "Housing finance imperfections, taxation, and private saving: A comparative simulation analysis of the United States and Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 215-238, September.
    3. Shunji Tada & Koyo Miyoshi, 2015. "Verifying household incomes in Japanese statistics," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 11(4), pages 531-546, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Hiroaki Sasaki & Noriki Fukatani & Daisuke Imai & Yusuke Kamanaka, 2025. "Sustainable Economic Growth in an Economy With Exhaustible Resources and a Declining Population Under the Balance‐of‐Payments Constraint," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(3), pages 328-345, July.
    2. Sasaki, Hiroaki & Mino, Kazuo, 2024. "Effects of exhaustible resources and declining population on economic growth with Hotelling’s rule," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    3. Sasaki, Hiroaki, 2023. "Growth with automation capital and declining population," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    4. Charles Yuji Horioka, 2026. "The Past and Future of Japan's Household Saving Rate (in Japanese: 「日本の家計貯蓄率の過去と将来」)," ISER Discussion Paper 1305, Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka.
    5. Sagiri Kitao & Tomoaki Yamada, 2025. "The time trend and life-cycle profiles of consumption," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 71-111, March.

    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. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio, 2002. "Private Transfers, Borrowing Constraints and the Timing of Homeownership," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 315-339, May.
    2. Anna Sokolova, 2023. "Marginal Propensity to Consume and Unemployment: a Meta-analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 813-846, December.
    3. Yu Mei & Xie Haibin & Huang Xiaowei & Xu Jinhai & Ralescu Dan, 2014. "A Study on the Chinese Enterprise Annuity Replacement Rate Problem," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-15, February.
    4. Nao Sudo & Michio Suzuki & Tomoaki Yamada, 2012. "Inequalities in Japanese Economy during the Lost Decades," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-856, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    5. Timothy K. M. Beatty & Joakim A. Weill, 2024. "Social Security and High-Frequency Labor Supply: Evidence from Uber Drivers," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-079, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Creedy, John & Gemmell, Norman & Scobie, Grant, 2015. "Pensions, savings and housing: A life-cycle framework with policy simulations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 346-357.
    7. Arna Vardardottir & Michaela Pagel, 2016. "The Liquid Hand-to-Mouth: Evidence from a Personal Finance Management Software," 2016 Meeting Papers 789, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Andrew Bibler & Mouhcine Guettabi & Matthew N. Reimer, 2023. "Universal Cash Transfers and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(1), pages 198-224, January.
    9. Koskela, Erkki & Virén, Matti, 1989. "Taxes, credit market 'imperfections' and inter-country differences in the household saving ratio," Research Discussion Papers 21/1989, Bank of Finland.
    10. Daniel K. Fetter, 2013. "How Do Mortgage Subsidies Affect Home Ownership? Evidence from the Mid-century GI Bills," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 111-147, May.
    11. David Boto-García & Alvaro Muñiz-Fernández & Levi Pérez, 2024. "Windfall money and outbound tourism: A natural experiment from lottery winnings," Tourism Economics, , vol. 30(5), pages 1257-1280, August.
    12. Julia Le Blanc & Alessandro Porpiglia & Federica Teppa & Junyi Zhu & Michael Ziegelmeyer, 2014. "Household saving behaviour and credit constraints in the euro area," BCL working papers 93, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    13. David CASHIN & Takashi UNAYAMA, 2011. "The Intertemporal Substitution and Income Effects of a VAT Rate Increase: Evidence from Japan," Discussion papers 11045, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    14. Moriizumi, Yoko, 2003. "Targeted saving by renters for housing purchase in Japan," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 494-509, May.
    15. Selahattin Imrohoroglu & Ayse Imrohoroglu & Kaiji Chen, 2006. "The Japanese Saving Rate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1850-1858, December.
    16. Ito, Takatoshi & 伊藤, 隆敏 & イトウ, タカトシ & Tsuri, Masao & 釣, 雅雄 & ツリ, マサオ, 2003. "Macroeconomic Impacts of Aging in Japan on the Balance of Current Accounts," Discussion Paper 170, Center for Intergenerational Studies, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    17. Svend E. Hougaard Jensen & Sigurdur P. Olafsson & Thorsteinn Sigurdur Sveinsson & Gylfi Zoega, 2022. "Mapping Educational Disparities in Life-Cycle Consumption," CESifo Working Paper Series 9855, CESifo.
    18. Macchiavello, Rocco & Casaburi, Lorenzo, 2015. "Firm and Market Response to Saving Constraints: Evidence from the Kenyan Dairy Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 10952, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Guney, Ibrahim Ethem & Hacihasanoglu, Yavuz Selim & Tumen, Semih, 2017. "Consumer Loan Response to Permanent Labor Income Shocks: Evidence from a Major Minimum Wage Increase," GLO Discussion Paper Series 58, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. Taro Ohno & Junpei Sakamaki & Daizo Kojima & Tomotsugu Imahori, 2024. "Factor decomposition of changes in the income tax base," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 75(1), pages 1-28, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • P51 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems

    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:mof:journl:ppr14_04_10. 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: Policy Research Institute (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/prigvjp.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.