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Prudence and precautionary saving

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  • Luigi Ventura
  • Joseph Eisenhauer

Abstract

Households save income for various reasons, including the need to plan for the future, the intention to leave a bequest, and the desire to guard against unforeseen expenditures and income fluctuations. Although it is widely believed that prudent individuals engage in precautionary saving, the extent of such saving is not well understood. This paper develops a model of saving with an explicit role for the Leland-Kimball measure of prudence. Estimation of the model using household-level data from Italy suggests an average value of relative prudence near 4 or 5, with approximately 15 to 36 percent of total saving being precautionary. Copyright Springer 2006

Suggested Citation

  • Luigi Ventura & Joseph Eisenhauer, 2006. "Prudence and precautionary saving," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 30(2), pages 155-168, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jecfin:v:30:y:2006:i:2:p:155-168
    DOI: 10.1007/BF02761482
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    1. Ventura Luigi & Eisenhauer Joseph G., 2005. "The Relevance of Precautionary Saving," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 23-35, February.
    2. Laudo Ogura & David T Yi, 2015. "Determinants of saving in U.S. nonprofit organizations," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(4), pages 2786-2795.
    3. Barbara Broadway & John P. Haisken-DeNew, 2019. "Keep calm and consume? Subjective uncertainty and precautionary savings," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 43(3), pages 481-505, July.
    4. Lugilde, Alba, 2018. "Does income uncertainty affect Spanish household consumption?," MPRA Paper 87110, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Paul Heidhues & Botond Kőszegi, 2017. "Naïveté-Based Discrimination," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 1019-1054.
    6. Dominique Henriet & Patrick A. Pintus & Alain Trannoy, 2014. "Is the Flat Tax Optimal under Income Risk?," Working Papers halshs-00999222, HAL.
    7. Ton S van den Bremer & Frederick van der Ploeg, 2013. "Managing and Harnessing Volatile Oil Windfalls," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(1), pages 130-167, April.
    8. AJ A. Bostian & Christoph Heinzel, 2016. "Consumption Smoothing and Precautionary Saving under Recursive Preferences," FOODSECURE Working papers 44, LEI Wageningen UR.
    9. Hideaki Tamura & Yoichi Matsubayashi, 2014. "A New Solution to the Equity Premium Puzzle and the Risk-Free Rate Puzzle: Theory and Evidence," Discussion Papers 1422, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.

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