IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3205.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Japan's Saving Rate: New Data and Reflections

Author

Listed:
  • Fumio Hayashi

Abstract

This paper examines available evidence on Japan's wealth accumulation. Time-series evidence over the last one hundred years indicates that the phenomenon of extraordinarily high Japanese saving rate ia limited to the high-growth era of 1965-1975. Micro evidence about consumption and aaving by age can be more easily explained by the dynasty model than by the lifecycle hypothesis. The infinite horizon neoclassical growth model, while capable of generating the hump in the saving rate and explaining why it was preceded by the rapid GNP growth in the post-war period, leaves unanswered the question of why wealth accumulation in pre-war Japan was so slow. Perhaps growth in pre-war Japan was hampered by harmful effects of misguided government policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Fumio Hayashi, 1989. "Japan's Saving Rate: New Data and Reflections," NBER Working Papers 3205, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3205
    Note: PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3205.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Altonji, Joseph G & Hayashi, Fumio & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1992. "Is the Extended Family Altruistically Linked? Direct Tests Using Micro Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1177-1198, December.
    2. Lawrence J. Christiano, 1989. "Understanding Japan's saving rate: the reconstruction hypothesis," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 13(Spr), pages 10-25.
    3. Fumio Hayashi, 1986. "Why Is Japan's Saving Rate So Apparently High?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1986, Volume 1, pages 147-234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Balke, Nathan S & Gordon, Robert J, 1989. "The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 38-92, February.
    5. Fumio Hayashi, 1989. "Is Japan's saving rate high?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 13(Spr), pages 3-9.
    6. Christopher D. Carroll & Lawrence H. Summers, 1991. "Consumption Growth Parallels Income Growth: Some New Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: National Saving and Economic Performance, pages 305-348, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Maurice Obstfeld, 1993. "The Adjustment Mechanism," NBER Chapters, in: A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System: Lessons for International Monetary Reform, pages 201-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Riccardo Cristadoro & Daniela Marconi, 2012. "Household savings in China," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 275-299, November.
    3. Balvers, Ronald J. & H. Bergstrand, Jeffrey, 1997. "Equilibrium real exchange rates: closed-form theoretical solutions and some empirical evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 345-366, June.
    4. Michael D. Bordo & Finn E. Kydland, 1990. "The Gold Standard as a Rule," NBER Working Papers 3367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Michael D. Bordo, 1995. "The Gold Standard as a `Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval'," NBER Working Papers 5340, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Industry evolution and transition: the role of information capital," Staff Report 162, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    7. Iwamoto, Yasushi, 1996. "Japan's saving rate is indeed lower than Professor Hayashi revealed," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 35-41, March.
    8. Michael D. Bordo & Anna J. Schwartz, 1994. "The Specie Standard as a Contingent Rule: Some Evidence for Core and Peripheral Countries, 1880-1990," NBER Working Papers 4860, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. David W. Campbell, 1999. "Explaining Japan's Saving Rate," Macroeconomics 9902004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Selahattin Imrohoroglu & Ayse Imrohoroglu & Kaiji Chen, 2006. "The Japanese Saving Rate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1850-1858, December.
    3. Sebastian Edwards, 1995. "Why are Saving Rates so Different Across Countries?: An International Comparative Analysis," NBER Working Papers 5097, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Campbell, David W., 2004. "Explaining Japan's saving rate," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 797-815, August.
    5. Dekle, Robert, 2004. "Financing consumption in an aging Japan: The role of foreign capital inflows and immigration," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 506-527, December.
    6. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Kenneth D. West, 2006. "Land Prices and Business Fixed Investment in Japan," Chapters, in: Lawrence R. Klein (ed.), Long-run Growth and Short-run Stabilization, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Robert E. Lipsey & Irving B. Kravis, 1987. "Is the U.S. a Spendthrift Nation?," NBER Working Papers 2274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Tokuo Iwaisako & Keiko Okada, 2010. "Understanding the Decline in Japan's Saving Rate in the New Millennium," Macroeconomics Working Papers 23113, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    9. Maurice Obstfeld, 1993. "International Capital Mobility in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 4534, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. R. & Junsen Zhang, 2019. "Housing Prices, Inter-generational Co-residence, and “Excess†Savings by the Young: Evidence using Chinese Data," Working Papers 2019-059, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    11. Simon Gilchrist & John C. Williams, 2001. "Transition Dynamics in Vintage Capital Models: Explaining the Postwar Catch-up of Germany and Japan," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-113, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    12. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Kenneth D. West, 1996. "Business Fixed Investment and the Recent Business Cycle in Japan," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, Volume 11, pages 277-344, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Charles Yuji Horioka, 2002. "Are the Japanese Selfish, Altruistic or Dynastic?," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 53(1), pages 26-54, March.
    14. Charles Yuji Horioka, 2006. "The Dissaving of the Aged Revisited: The Case of Japan," ISER Discussion Paper 0665, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    15. Shimono Keiko & Ishikawa Miho, 2002. "Estimating the Size of Bequests in Japan: 1986-1994," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 1-21.
    16. Marta Melguizo Garde, 2007. "La motivación de las transmisiones lucrativas entre generaciones de una familia: modelos teóricos y evidencia empírica," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 181(2), pages 81-118, June.
    17. Albert Ando & Dimitrios Christelis & Tsutomu Miyagawa, 2003. "Inefficiency of Corporate Investment and Distortion of Savings Behavior in Japan," NBER Chapters, in: Structural Impediments to Growth in Japan, pages 155-190, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Mauro Baranzini, 2005. "Modigliani's life-cycle theory of savings fifty years later," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 58(233-234), pages 109-172.
    19. Rappaport, Jordan, 2006. "A bottleneck capital model of development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 2113-2129, November.
    20. Gollin, Douglas, 2008. "Nobody's business but my own: Self-employment and small enterprise in economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 219-233, March.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:3205. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.