Improving measurement of household savings and wealth

This article describes recent trends in household saving and wealth leading up to the current economic downturn. It focuses specifically on the saving ratio and the contributions of pensions in household wealth. Although National Accounts measures have provided good indicators of the imbalances thatdeveloped in the years before the financial crisis, a number of improvements have been identified - which should become possible in the future using information from new household survey sources. These include breaking down household debt demographically, for which it is planned to publish new analyses and datasets in late 2009. Economic & Labour Market Review (2009) 3, 33–36; doi:10.1057/elmr.2009.124