IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpma/9905002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

HABITS AND THE SAVINGS-GROWTH RELATIONSHIP Why US Personal Savings Rates Are At Historic Lows

Author

Listed:
  • Petar D. Vujanovic

    (N/A)

Abstract

In this paper we show that the solution to the standard consumer maximisation problem which is augmented by habit-persistence can imply a positive and linear relationship between changes in the level of savings and changes in present income. We show that these savings-income dynamics contrast with the orthodox view that the level of the savings rate is related to the present growth rate of income. The model also implies that if expectations of future changes in income are positive and present income itself is stationary, then the level of consumption tends to converge on income over time and savings fall. In these circumstances the standard model predicts that the level of savings and consumption remain constant. Using personal savings and disposable income time series data, we show that a simple bivariate version of the habits-augmented model which assumes constant expectations of future changes in income and strong habit persistence performs extremely well in terms of explaining the dynamics of post-war United States personal savings rates; in particular their recent decline to historic lows.

Suggested Citation

  • Petar D. Vujanovic, 1999. "HABITS AND THE SAVINGS-GROWTH RELATIONSHIP Why US Personal Savings Rates Are At Historic Lows," Macroeconomics 9905002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:9905002
    Note: Type of Document - PDF; prepared on IBM PC; to print on HP LaserJet 5; pages: 23 ; figures: included. THIS IS A FIRST DRAFT ANY COMMENTS ARE VERY WELCOME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/mac/papers/9905/9905002.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hall, Robert E, 1978. "Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 971-987, December.
    2. Christopher D. Carroll & David N. Weil, 1993. "Saving and growth: a reinterpretation," Working Papers 1993-36, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    3. Carroll, Christopher D. & Weil, David N., 1994. "Saving and growth: a reinterpretation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 133-192, June.
    4. John Muellbauer, 1988. "Habits, Rationality and Myopia in the Life Cycle Consumption Function," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 9, pages 47-70.
    5. Christopher D. Carroll, 1994. "How does Future Income Affect Current Consumption?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 111-147.
    6. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    7. Susan M. Collins, 1991. "Saving Behavior in Ten Developing Countries," NBER Chapters, in: National Saving and Economic Performance, pages 349-376, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1989. "Consumption, Income, and Interest Rates: Reinterpreting the Time Series Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 185-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Alessie, Rob & Lusardi, Annamaria, 1997. "Consumption, saving and habit formation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 103-108, August.
    10. Braun, Phillip A. & Constantinides, George M. & Ferson, Wayne E., 1993. "Time nonseparability in aggregate consumption : International evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 897-920, June.
    11. West, Kenneth D., 1988. "The insensitivity of consumption to news about income," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 17-33, January.
    12. Maddison, Angus, 1992. " A Long-Run Perspective on Saving," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(2), pages 181-196.
    13. Banerjee, Anindya & Dolado, Juan J. & Galbraith, John W. & Hendry, David, 1993. "Co-integration, Error Correction, and the Econometric Analysis of Non-Stationary Data," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288107.
    14. Easterly, William, 1994. "Economic stagnation, fixed factors, and policy thresholds," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 525-557, June.
    15. repec:adr:anecst:y:1988:i:9:p:03 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Flavin, Marjorie A, 1981. "The Adjustment of Consumption to Changing Expectations about Future Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 974-1009, October.
    17. B. Douglas Bernheim & John B. Shoven, 1991. "National Saving and Economic Performance," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bern91-2, March.
    18. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1979. "Why do Koreans save so little?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 343-362, August.
    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. Norman Loayza & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Luis Servén, 2001. "Una Revisión del COmportamiento y de los determinantes del ahorro en el mundo," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Felipe Morandé & Rodrigo Vergara & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Edit (ed.),Análisis Empírico del Ahorro en Chile, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 13-48, Central Bank of Chile.
    2. Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo, 2004. "Consumption Theory," Handbooks, Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England, number 23, April.
    3. Jim Malley & Hassan Molana, 2002. "The Life-Cycle-Permanent-Income Model: A Reinterpretation and Supporting Evidence," Working Papers 2002_17, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    4. Jonathan A. Parker, 2000. "Spendthrift in America? On Two Decades of Decline in the US Saving Rate," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1999, Volume 14, pages 317-387, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jim Malley & Hassan Molana, 2003. "The Life-Cycle-Permanent- Income Hypothesis: A Reinterpretation and Supporting Evidence," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 138, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    6. Yulei Luo & William T. Smith & Heng-fu Zou, 2009. "The Spirit of Capitalism and Excess Smoothness," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 10(2), pages 281-301, November.
    7. Jim Malley & Hassan Molana, 1999. "The Permanent Income Hypothesis Revisited," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 105, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    8. IWAMOTO Koichiro, 2011. "Food Consumption Expenditure and Habit Formation: Evidence from Japanese Household Panel Data," ESRI Discussion paper series 264, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    9. Jim Malley & Hassan Molana, "undated". "The Permanent Income Hypothesis Revisited: Reconciling Evidence from Aggregate Data with the Representative Consumer Behaviour," ICMM Discussion Papers 48, Department of Economics University of Strathclyde.
    10. Christopher D. Carroll & Jiri Slacalek & Martin Sommer, 2011. "International Evidence on Sticky Consumption Growth," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1135-1145, November.
    11. Karen E. Dynan, 2000. "Habit Formation in Consumer Preferences: Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 391-406, June.
    12. Riccardo Corradini, 2005. "An Empirical Analysis of Permanent Income Hypothesis Applied to Italy using State Space Models with non zero correlation between trend and cycle," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 28, Society for Computational Economics.
    13. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Consumption Demand," NBER Working Papers 6466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Janine Aron & John Muellbauer, 2006. "Housing Wealth, Credit Conditions and Consumption," CSAE Working Paper Series 2006-08, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Christopher D. Carroll & Misuzu Otsuka & Jirka Slacalek, 2006. "How Large Is the Housing Wealth Effect? A New Approach," NBER Working Papers 12746, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Di Giannatale, Sonia & Roa, María José, 2016. "Formal Saving in Developing Economies: Barriers, Interventions, and Effects," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 8107, Inter-American Development Bank.
    17. M Boschi & S d'Addona & A Goenka, 2012. "Testing external habits in an asset pricing model," CAMA Working Papers 2012-20, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    18. Charlotte Ostergaard & Bent E. Serensen & Oved Yosha, 2002. "Consumption and Aggregate Constraints: Evidence from U.S. States and Canadian Provinces," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 634-645, June.
    19. Cevdet Denizer & Holger C. Wolf, 1998. "Household Savings in Transition Economies," NBER Working Papers 6457, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Stephen M. Miller & Frank S. Russek, 2003. "The Relationship Between Large Fiscal Adjustments And Short‐Term Output Growth Under Alternative Fiscal Policy Regimes," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 21(1), pages 41-58, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Savings Consumption Habits Growth;

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

    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:wpa:wuwpma:9905002. 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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.