IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/iasawp/ir99057.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Demographic Trends and Household Saving in China

Author

Listed:
  • M. Wakabayashi
  • F.L. MacKellar

Abstract

A key source of economic growth in China has been the abundance of household savings, especially in rural regions. In this paper, we estimate saving functions for urban and rural areas in China, paying particular attention to the role of demographic structure. Our results confirm other researchers' finding that saving rates vary inversely with both the elderly and youth dependency ratios, but that the former effect is more significant. This suggests that prospective demographic trends in China will put downward pressure on household savings. Combining our estimation results with reasonable assumptions about economic growth and U.N. population projections, we predict that household savings in China will begin to decline about 2025. A significant shortage of "ex ante" savings could develop as a result. These results confirm the results and reinforce the concerns expressed by Heller and Szymansky (1997) about the long-run prospect for savings in the East Asian region and possible implications for the global economy.

Suggested Citation

  • M. Wakabayashi & F.L. MacKellar, 1999. "Demographic Trends and Household Saving in China," Working Papers ir99057, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    • Handle: RePEc:wop:iasawp:ir99057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Publications/Documents/IR-99-057.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Publications/Documents/IR-99-057.ps
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David N. Weil, 1994. "The Saving of the Elderly in Micro and Macro Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 55-81.
    2. Angus Deaton & Christina Paxson, 1997. "The effects of economic and population growth on national saving and inequality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(1), pages 97-114, February.
    3. Ronald D Lee & Andrew Mason & Tim Miller, 1998. "Saving, Wealth, and Population," Working Papers 199805, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    4. Schmidt-Hebbel, Klaus & Webb, Steven B & Corsetti, Giancarlo, 1992. "Household Saving in Developing Countries: First Cross-Country Evidence," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 6(3), pages 529-547, September.
    5. Horioka, C.Y., 1989. "The Determinants Of Japan'S Saving Rate: The Impact Of The Age Structure Of The Population And Other Factors," ISER Discussion Paper 0189, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    6. Mr. Steven A. Symansky & Mr. Peter S. Heller, 1997. "Implications for Savings of Aging in the Asian “Tigers”," IMF Working Papers 1997/136, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Ismail, Aisha & Rashid, Kashif, 2013. "Determinants of household saving: Cointegrated evidence from Pakistan (1975–2011)," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 524-531.
    2. Naeem AKRAM & Muhammad Irfan AKRAM, 2015. "Savings Behaviour In Muslim And Non-Muslim Countries In Context To The Interest Rate," Pakistan Journal of Applied Economics, Applied Economics Research Centre, vol. 25(2), pages 161-177.
    3. Tasnim Khan & Abid Rashid Gill & Sobia Haneef, 2013. "Determinants of Private Saving: A Case of Pakistan," Asian Journal of Economic Modelling, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 1(1), pages 1-7, December.

    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. Eytan Sheshinski, 2005. "Longevity and Aggregate Savings," Discussion Paper Series dp403, The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    2. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Bryan Graham, 2003. "Longevity and Life‐cycle Savings," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(3), pages 319-338, September.
    3. Quamrul H. Ashraf & David N. Weil & Joshua Wilde, 2011. "The Effect of Interventions to Reduce Fertility on Economic Growth," Working Papers 2011-14, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    4. Kenneth Kuttner & Adam Posen, 2011. "How Flexible Can Inflation Targeting Be and Still Work?," Department of Economics Working Papers 2011-10, Department of Economics, Williams College, revised Sep 2011.
    5. David Demery & Nigel Duck, 2006. "Demographic change and the UK savings rate," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 119-136.
    6. Higgins, Matthew, 1998. "Demography, National Savings, and International Capital Flows," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 343-369, May.
    7. Charles Yuji Horioka, 2021. "Is the selfish life-cycle model more applicable in Japan and, if so, why? A literature survey," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 157-187, March.
    8. De Andrés Mosquera, Andrés, 2017. "Los determinantes a largo plazo y su contribución a la tasa de ahorro de los hogares españoles en el período 1985-2016 || Long-term determinants and its contribution to Spanish household saving rate d," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 24(1), pages 292-339, Diciembre.
    9. Lindh, Thomas & Malmberg, Bo, 2002. "Swedish post-war economic development. The role of age structure in a welfare state," Arbetsrapport 2003:4, Institute for Futures Studies.
    10. Quamrul H. Ashraf & David N. Weil & Joshua Wilde, 2011. "The Effect of Fertility Reduction on Economic Growth," Center for Development Economics 2011-07, Department of Economics, Williams College, revised Feb 2013.
    11. Quamrul H. Ashraf & David N. Weil & Joshua Wilde, 2013. "The Effect of Fertility Reduction on Economic Growth," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 39(1), pages 97-130, March.
    12. Shiyu Li & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Shuanglin Lin & Wing Thye Woo & Yunyun Jiang, 2016. "How Much Will China Save? Projecting China's National Savings Through 2040," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 255-274, September.
    13. Kim, Soyoung & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2008. "Demographic changes, saving, and current account: An analysis based on a panel VAR model," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 236-256, March.
    14. Lindh, T. & Malmberg, B., 1999. "Age Distributions and the Current Account - A Changing Relation?," Papers 1999:21, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
    15. Lee, Ronald & Mason, Andrew & Miller, Timothy, 2000. "From Transfers to Individual Responsibility: Implications for Savings and Capital Accumulation in Taiwan and the United States," Arbetsrapport 2000:3, Institute for Futures Studies.
    16. David Demery & Nigel Duck, 2003. "Demographic Change and the UK Savings Rate," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 03/550, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    17. Ronald Lee & Sang-Hyop Lee & Andrew Mason, 2006. "Charting the Economic Life Cycle," NBER Working Papers 12379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Diane Macunovich, 1999. "The Baby Boom As It Ages: How Has It Affected Patterns of Consumptions and Savings in the United States?," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 7, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    19. Barry P. Bosworth & Ralph C. Bryant & Gary Burtless, 2004. "The Impact of Aging on Financial Markets and the Economy: A Survey," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College 2004-23, Center for Retirement Research.
    20. Kieran Mc Morrow & Werner Röger, 2003. "Economic and financial market consequences of ageing populations," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 182, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.

    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:wop:iasawp:ir99057. 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: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iiasaat.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.