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The Cultural Origin of Saving Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Costa-Font, Joan

    (London School of Economics)

  • Giuliano, Paola

    (University of California, Los Angeles)

  • Özcan, Berkay

    (London School of Economics)

Abstract

Traditional economic interpretations have not been successful in explaining differences in saving rates across countries. One hypothesis is that savings respond to cultural specific social norms. A seminal paper in economics (1) however did not find any effect of culture on savings. We revisit this evidence using a novel dataset, which allows us to study the saving behavior of up to three generations of immigrants in the United Kingdom. Against the backdrop of existing evidence, we find that cultural preferences are an important explanation for cross-country differences in saving behavior, and their relevance persists up to three generations.

Suggested Citation

  • Costa-Font, Joan & Giuliano, Paola & Özcan, Berkay, 2020. "The Cultural Origin of Saving Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 12987, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12987
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The Cultural Origin of Saving Behavior
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2020-07-21 18:00:09

    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ornella Tarola & Skerdilajda Zanaj, 2024. "From Flags to Products: Nationalism and Consumer Choices," DEM Discussion Paper Series 24-03, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    2. Davoli, Maddalena & Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2020. "Culture and adult financial literacy: Evidence from the United States," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    3. Alessia Aspide & Kathleen J. Brown & Matthew DiGiuseppe & Alexander Slaski, 2023. "Culture & European attitudes on public debt," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 509-525, July.
    4. F. Cerina & X. Raurich, 2023. "Saving Behaviour and the Intergenerational Allocation of Leisure Time," Working Paper CRENoS 202315, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    5. Richwine, Jason, 2023. "Savings behavior among immigrants and their U.S.-born children: A test of the culture-transplant model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    6. Hong, Seiwoong & Lee, Junyong & Oh, Frederick Dongchuhl & Shin, Donglim, 2024. "Religion and household saving behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    7. Li, Logan, 2021. "Political violence and household savings: Evidence from the long-term effects of the Cultural Revolution," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    8. Michaela Benzeval & Thomas F. Crossley & Edith Aguirre, 2023. "A symposium on Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study: introduction," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 317-340, December.
    9. Abigail McKnight & Mark Rucci, 2020. "The financial resilience of households: 22 country study with new estimates, breakdowns by household characteristics and a review of policy options," CASE Papers /219, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    10. Christopher Ellis & Jon C. Thompson & Jiabin Wu, 2020. "Labor market characteristics and cultural choice," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1584-1617, September.
    11. Dario Maimone Ansaldo Patti & Pietro Navarra & Giuseppe Sobbrio, 2022. "Insecure Property Rights and Conflicts: How to Solve Them?," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-32, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics
    • D0 - Microeconomics - - General

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