This paper shows that increasing government social expenditures can make a substantive contribution to increasing household consumption in China. The paper first undertakes an empirical study of the relationship between the savings rate and social expenditures for a panel of OECD countries and...

This paper studies a panel of China's provinces over the period 1996-2009 during which urban household saving rates increased from 19 percent of disposable income to 30 percent. It finds that the increase in urban saving rates is negatively associated with the decline in real interest rates over...

This paper examines how durable goods and financial frictions shape the business cycle of a small open economy subject to shocks to trend and transitory shocks. In the data, nondurable consumption is not as volatile as income for both developed and emerging market economies. The simulation of...

This paper explores the hypothesis that the propensity to consume out of income varies in a non-linear fashion with fiscal variables, and in particular with government debt per capita. Using data from eighteen OECD countries the paper examines whether there is any empirical evidence to support...

Boosting growth through rebalancing is critical for addressing pressures from Japan’s aging population. This paper focuses on one important untapped source of growth - private consumption, and argues that the key to reviving consumption is boosting household disposable income through...

The paper analyzes Chile's structural balance fiscal rule in the face of copper price shocks originating in foreign copper demand. It uses a version of the IMF's Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal Model (GIMF) that includes a copper sector. Two results are obtained. First, Chile's current...

The Korean authorities having taken decisive and proactive fiscal measures to help stem the fallout from the current global economic and financial crisis, with the size of the fiscal stimulus well-above the average response of other G20 economies. In this context, a key question is how effective...

From 1995 to 2005, the average urban household saving rate in China rose by 7 percentage points, to ¼ of disposable income. We use household-level data to explain the postponing of consumption despite rapid income growth. Tracing cohorts over time indicates virtually no consumption smoothing...

This paper provides detailed empirical evidence on the saving behavior of Irish households using micro data from the 1994/95 and 1999/2000 Household Budget Surveys. I employ synthetic cohort techniques to characterize the life cycle profile of saving rates and to examine the response of...