Disentangling the importance of the precautionary saving motive

  • We evaluate the importance of the precautionary saving motive by relying on a direct question about precautionary wealth from the 1995 and 1998 waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances. In this survey, a new question has been designed to elicit the amount of desired precautionary wealth. This allows us to assess the amount of precautionary accumulation and to overcome many of the problems of previous works on this topic. We find that a precautionary saving motive exists and affects virtually every type of household. However, precautionary savings account for only 8 percent of total wealth holdings. Even though this motive does not give rise to large amounts of wealth, particularly for young and middle-age households, it is particularly important for two groups: older households and business owners. Overall, we provide strong evidence that we need to take the precautionary saving motive into account when modeling saving behavior. Klassifizierung: D91, E21, C21

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Metadaten
Author:Arthur Kennickell, Annamaria Lusardi
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-29433
Parent Title (German):Center for Financial Studies (Frankfurt am Main): CFS working paper series ; No. 2006,15
Series (Serial Number):CFS working paper series (2006, 15)
Document Type:Working Paper
Language:English
Year of Completion:2005
Year of first Publication:2005
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2006/07/03
Tag:buffer-stock models of saving; business owners wealth; old cohorts wealth; risk
GND Keyword:Haushal; Finanzplanung; Sparen; Sicherheit; Geschichte 1995-1998
HeBIS-PPN:190331526
Institutes:Wissenschaftliche Zentren und koordinierte Programme / Center for Financial Studies (CFS)
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht