A Cohort Analysis of Saving Behavior by U.S. Households

A Cohort Analysis of Saving Behavior by U.S. Households
Author: Orazio P. Attanasio
Publisher:
Total Pages: 56
Release: 1993
Genre: Cohort analysis
ISBN:

In this paper I analyze the pattern of saving behavior by U.S. households, using the Consumer Expenditure (CEX) Survey. The analysis' main goal is to explain the decline in aggregate personal saving in the United States in the 1980s. I estimate a typical' saving-age profile and identify systematic movements of the profile across different cohorts of U.S. households. In addition, I consider different definitions of saving and control for a number of factors that figure in popular explanations fo the decline in saving. The main results can be summarized as follows: 1) the typical' saving-age profile presents a pronounced hump' and peaks around age 60; 2) this typical' age profile was, at least during the 1980s, shifted down for those cohorts born between 1925 and 1939. This is consistent with the low level of aggregate saving because these cohort were, in the 1980s, in that part of their life cycle when saving is highest; 3) this results holds for various definition of saving with one notable exception; the decline is less pronounced when expenditure on durables is considered as saving; and 4) some other popular explanations of the decline in saving are rejected by the data, including those appealing to the presence of capital gains on real or financial assets.

International Comparisons of Household Saving

International Comparisons of Household Saving
Author: James M. Poterba
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226676285

Governments and corporations may chip in, but around the world houshold saving is the biggest factor in national saving. To better understand why saving rates differ across countries, this volume provides the most up-to-date analyses of patterns of household saving behavior in Canada, Italy, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each of the six chapters examines micro data sets of household saving within a particular country and summarizes statistics on patterns of saving by age, income, and other demographic factors. The authors provide age-earning profiles and analyses of the accumulation of wealth over the lifetime in a clear way that allows quick comparisons between earning, consumption, and saving in the six countries. Designed as a companion to Public Policies and Household Saving (1994), which addresses saving policies in the G-7 nations, this volume offers detailed descriptions of saving behavior in all G-7 nations except France.

A Cohort Analysis of Saving Behavior by U.S. Households

A Cohort Analysis of Saving Behavior by U.S. Households
Author: Orazio Attanasio
Publisher:
Total Pages: 45
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

In this paper I analyze the pattern of saving behavior by U.S. households, using the Consumer Expenditure (CEX) Survey. The analysis' main goal is to explain the decline in aggregate personal saving in the United States in the 1980s. I estimate a typical' saving-age profile and identify systematic movements of the profile across different cohorts of U.S. households. In addition, I consider different definitions of saving and control for a number of factors that figure in popular explanations fo the decline in saving. The main results can be summarized as follows: 1) the typical' saving-age profile presents a pronounced hump' and peaks around age 60; 2) this typical' age profile was, at least during the 1980s, shifted down for those cohorts born between 1925 and 1939. This is consistent with the low level of aggregate saving because these cohort were, in the 1980s, in that part of their life cycle when saving is highest; 3) this results holds for various definition of saving with one notable exception; the decline is less pronounced when expenditure on durables is considered as saving; and 4) some other popular explanations of the decline in saving are rejected by the data, including those appealing to the presence of capital gains on real or financial assets.

Handbook of Behavioral Economics - Foundations and Applications 1

Handbook of Behavioral Economics - Foundations and Applications 1
Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 749
Release: 2018-09-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0444633898

Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Foundations and Applications presents the concepts and tools of behavioral economics. Its authors are all economists who share a belief that the objective of behavioral economics is to enrich, rather than to destroy or replace, standard economics. They provide authoritative perspectives on the value to economic inquiry of insights gained from psychology. Specific chapters in this first volume cover reference-dependent preferences, asset markets, household finance, corporate finance, public economics, industrial organization, and structural behavioural economics. This Handbook provides authoritative summaries by experts in respective subfields regarding where behavioral economics has been; what it has so far accomplished; and its promise for the future. This taking-stock is just what Behavioral Economics needs at this stage of its so-far successful career. - Helps academic and non-academic economists understand recent, rapid changes in theoretical and empirical advances within behavioral economics - Designed for economists already convinced of the benefits of behavioral economics and mainstream economists who feel threatened by new developments in behavioral economics - Written for those who wish to become quickly acquainted with behavioral economics

The Financial Diaries

The Financial Diaries
Author: Jonathan Morduch
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2017-04-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691172986

Drawing on the groundbreaking U.S. Financial Diaries project (http://www.usfinancialdiaries.org/), which follows the lives of 235 low- and middle-income families as they navigate through a year, the authors challenge popular assumptions about how Americans earn, spend, borrow, and save-- and they identify the true causes of distress and inequality for many working Americans.