IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4031.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Diminished Expectations of Nuclear War and Increased Personal Savings: Evidence From Individual Survey Data

Author

Listed:
  • Bruce Russett
  • Joel Slemrod

Abstract

At the end of 1983 Gallup polls showed that 52 percent of Americans thought that the probability of a world war in the next 10 years was 50% or higher; by 1989 the percentage had dropped to 29%. Fear of war of this pervasiveness is bound to have an effect on decisions about present versus uncertain future consumption. This paper investigates the cross-sectional relationship between saving and fear of war using responses to telephone surveys conducted during April and October of 1990. The analysis shows that an individual's professed level of fear about the likelihood of nuclear war was significantly negatively related to the probability of being a saver rather than a dissaver, to changes in actual saving, and to saving plans relative to actual savings. Fear of war had an independent effect controlling for many demographic, economic and psychological characteristics. These results are broadly consistent with other evidence on the relationship between aggregate saving and fear of war over time and across countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce Russett & Joel Slemrod, 1992. "Diminished Expectations of Nuclear War and Increased Personal Savings: Evidence From Individual Survey Data," NBER Working Papers 4031, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4031
    Note: EFG PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4031.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patric H. Hendershott & Joe Peek, 1984. "Household Saving: An Econometric Investigation," NBER Working Papers 1383, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Slemrod, Joel, 1990. "Fear of Nuclear War and Intercountry Differences in the Rate of Saving," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(4), pages 647-657, October.
    3. Joel Slemrod, 1982. "Post-War Capital Accumulation and the Threat of Nuclear War," NBER Working Papers 0887, 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. Alex Mintz & Randolph T. Stevenson, 1995. "Defense Expenditures, Economic Growth, and The “Peace Dividendâ€," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(2), pages 283-305, June.
    2. Robert S. Pindyck & Neng Wang, 2013. "The Economic and Policy Consequences of Catastrophes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 306-339, November.
    3. Aizenman, Joshua & Noy, Ilan, 2015. "Saving and the long shadow of macroeconomic shocks," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 147-159.
    4. Mr. Christopher W. Crowe, 2009. "Irrational Exuberance in the U.S. Housing Market: Were Evangelicals Left Behind?," IMF Working Papers 2009/057, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Robert J. Barro, 2005. "Rare Events and the Equity Premium," NBER Working Papers 11310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Levy, Ori & Galili, Itai, 2006. "Terror and trade of individual investors," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 980-991, December.
    7. Finer, David Andrew, 2022. "No Shock Waves through Wall Street? Market Responses to the Risk of Nuclear War," Working Papers 318, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.

    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. Michael P. Leidy & Robert W. Staiger, 1985. "Economic Issues and Methodology in Arms Race Analysis," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(3), pages 503-530, September.
    2. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1991. "Japanese Finance in the 1980s: A Survey," NBER Chapters, in: Trade with Japan: Has the Door Opened Wider?, pages 225-270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Eckstein, Zvi & Tsiddon, Daniel, 2004. "Macroeconomic consequences of terror: theory and the case of Israel," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(5), pages 971-1002, July.
    4. Patric H. Hendershott & Joe Peek, 1987. "Private Saving in the United States: 1950-85," NBER Working Papers 2294, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Robert S. Pindyck & Neng Wang, 2013. "The Economic and Policy Consequences of Catastrophes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 306-339, November.
    6. Mensah, Edouard R. & Filipski, Mateusz J., 2022. "Saving for a rainy day: the impact of natural disasters on savings rates," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322266, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Mario Seccareccia, 2005. "Growing Household Indebtedness and the Plummeting Saving Rate in Canada: An Explanatory Note," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 16(1), pages 133-151, July.
    8. Marcella Alsan & Crystal Yang, 2018. "Fear and the Safety Net: Evidence from Secure Communities," NBER Working Papers 24731, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. David E. Altig, 1990. "The case of the missing interest deductions: will tax reform increase U. S. saving rates?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 26(Q IV), pages 22-34.
    10. Juan Foxley, 1986. "Determinantes Económicos del Ahorro Nacional: Chile 1963-1983," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 23(68), pages 119-128.
    11. Skidmore, Mark, 2001. "Risk, natural disasters, and household savings in a life cycle model," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 15-34, January.
    12. 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.
    13. Hendershott, Patric H & Peek, Joe, 1992. "Treasury Bill Rates in the 1970s and 1980s," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 24(2), pages 195-214, May.
    14. Joel Slemrod, 1986. "Saving and the Fear of Nuclear War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 30(3), pages 403-419, September.
    15. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1989_021 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    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:4031. 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.