IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/1776.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A World Macro Saving Fact and an Explanation

Author

Abstract

The world macro saving fact concerns the total financial saving of the world's private sector divided by world GDP. Relative to changes before 1994, there was a huge fall in this ratio between 1995 and 2000, a huge increase between 2000 and 2003, a huge fall between 2003 and 2006, and a huge increase between 2006 and 2009. This fact is documented in this paper. The paper also shows that the fluctuations in this ratio are highly correlated with fluctuations in world stock and housing prices. It thus appears that much of the variation in the world private saving rate can be explained by forces that affect world asset prices. Changes in these forces are for the most part unpredictable, and so much of the change in the world private saving rate is unpredictable.

Suggested Citation

  • Ray C. Fair, 2011. "A World Macro Saving Fact and an Explanation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1776, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jun 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1776
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d17/d1776.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Hélène Rey, 2007. "International Financial Adjustment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(4), pages 665-703, August.
    2. Obstfeld, Maurice, 2010. "The immoderate world economy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 603-614, June.
    3. Norman Loayza & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Luis Servén, 2000. "What Drives Private Saving Across the World?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 165-181, May.
    4. Gruber, Joseph W. & Kamin, Steven B., 2007. "Explaining the global pattern of current account imbalances," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 500-522, June.
    5. Masson, Paul R & Bayoumi, Tamim & Samiei, Hossein, 1998. "International Evidence on the Determinants of Private Saving," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 12(3), pages 483-501, September.
    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. Yin-Wong Cheung & Sven Steinkamp & Frank Westermann, 2020. "A Tale of Two Surplus Countries: China and Germany," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 131-158, February.
    2. Sun, Yi, 2011. "Structural change, savings and current account balance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 82-94, January.
    3. Clovis Kerdrain & Isabell Koske & Isabelle Wanner, 2011. "Current Account Imbalances: can Structural Reforms Help to Reduce Them?," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2011(1), pages 1-44.
    4. Nissim Ben David & Zvi Winer, 2014. "The Effect of Net Foreign Assets on Saving Rate," Journal of Empirical Economics, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 3(3), pages 146-162.
    5. Ray C. Fair, 2014. "Wealth Effects on World Private Financial Saving," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1974, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    6. Clovis Kerdrain & Isabell Koske & Isabelle Wanner, 2010. "The Impact of Structural Policies on Saving, Investment and Current Accounts," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 815, OECD Publishing.
    7. Evans, Martin, 2013. "Global Imbalances, Risk, and the Great Recession," MPRA Paper 52363, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Evans, Martin D.D., 2014. "External balances, trade flows and financial conditions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(PB), pages 271-290.
    9. Joshua Aizenman, 2015. "Internationalization of the RMB, Capital Market Openness and Financial Reforms in China," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 444-460, August.
    10. Rabindra Bhandari & Dharmendra Dhakal & Gyan Pradhan & Kamal P. Upadhyaya, 2007. "Determinants of Private Saving in South Asia," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 8(2), pages 205-217, December.
    11. Ken Chamuva Shawa, 2016. "Drivers Of Private Saving In Sub-Saharan African Countries," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 41(2), pages 77-110, June.
    12. Belke, Ansgar & Dreger, Christian, 2011. "Current account imbalances in the euro area: Catching up or competitiveness?," Discussion Papers 297, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Department of Business Administration and Economics.
    13. Mariam Camarero & Josep Lluís Carrion‐i‐Silvestre & Cecilio Tamarit, 2021. "External imbalances from a GVAR perspective," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(11), pages 3202-3245, November.
    14. M. Castro Campos & C. Kool & J. Muysken, 2013. "Cross-Country Private Saving Heterogeneity and Culture," De Economist, Springer, vol. 161(2), pages 101-120, June.
    15. Agenor, Pierre-Richard & Aizenman, Joshua, 2004. "Savings and the terms of trade under borrowing constraints," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 321-340, July.
    16. Ashoka Mody & Franziska Ohnsorge & Damiano Sandri, 2012. "Precautionary Savings in the Great Recession," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 60(1), pages 114-138, April.
    17. Stijn Rocher & Michael Stierle, 2015. "Household saving rates in the EU: Why do they differ so much?," Working Papers 2015.01, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    18. Aleksandra Kolasa & Barbara Liberda, 2014. "Determinants of saving in Poland: Are they different than in other OECD countries?," Working Papers 2014-13, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    19. Juann H. Hung & Rong Qian, 2010. "Why Is China's Saving Rate So High? A Comparative Study of Cross-Country Panel Data: Working Paper 2010-07," Working Papers 21920, Congressional Budget Office.
    20. Michael Graff & Kam Ki Tang & Jie Zhang, 2012. "Does Demographic Change Affect the Current Account? A Reconsideration," Global Economy Journal (GEJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 1-26, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial saving; World economy;

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

    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:cwl:cwldpp:1776. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.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.