Saving puzzles and saving policies in the United States

In the past two decades the widely reported personal saving rate in the United States has dropped from double digits to below zero. First, we attempt to account for the decline in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) saving rate. The macroeconomic literature suggests that 40-50 per cent o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oxford review of economic policy 2001-03, Vol.17 (1), p.95-115
Main Authors: Lusardi, A, Skinner, J, Venti, S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Capital gains
Capital gains tax
Consumer economics
Economic policy
Employee pension plans
Financial investments
Household economics
Household savings
Individual retirement accounts
Private pensions
Retirement
Savings
Savings and investment
Savings rates
Stock exchange
U.S.A
Wealth
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Summary:In the past two decades the widely reported personal saving rate in the United States has dropped from double digits to below zero. First, we attempt to account for the decline in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) saving rate. The macroeconomic literature suggests that 40-50 per cent of the drop since 1988 can be attributed to households spending stock-market capital gains. Another 30 per cent is accounting transfers from personal saving into government and corporate saving because of the way pensions and capital gains taxes are treated in the NIPA. Second, while NIPA saving measures are well suited to measuring the supply of new funds for investment and capital accumulation, it is not clear that they should be the target of government saving policies. Finally, we emphasize that the NIPA saving rate is not useful in judging whether households are preparing for retirement or other contingencies. Many households have accumulated significant wealth, primarily through retirement saving vehicles and capital gains, even as the saving rate slid. There remains a segment of the population who save little and whose behaviour appears untouched either by the stock-market boom or the slide in personal saving. We explore reasons and policy options for their puzzling low saving rate.
ISSN:0266-903X
1460-2121
DOI:10.1093/oxrep/17.1.95