In this paper, we attempt to shed light on whether Japanese households are rational or if their behavior is influenced by culture and social norms by examining their saving and bequest behavior. To summarize our main findings, we find that Japan's household saving rate showed great volatility,...

This paper estimates a household saving rate equation for India and the Republic of Korea using longterm time series data for the 1975-2010 period, focusing in particular on the impact of the premarital sex ratio on the household saving rate. To summarize the main findings of the paper, it finds...

Using a lifecycle model of consumption, saving and portfolio choice combined with linked survey and administrative data on wealth and lifetime earnings we evaluate measures of retirement preparedness. We estimate heterogeneous discount factors for households and compare these estimates of their...

We examine household saving in the context of a prescriptive model. Using Survey of Consumer Finances data sets in the 1995-2004 period, 57% of households reported spending less than income. Many effects in the multivariate analysis are consistent with a prescriptive model. We discuss other...

This paper analyses the level of inequality in Spain and how it evolved over the course of the past crisis and the early stages of the current recovery. To this end, it first introduces the various dimensions of wage, income, consumption and wealth inequality, and studies how they have...

In this paper, we analyze the saving motives of European households using micro-data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), which is conducted by the European Central Bank. We find that the rank ordering of saving motives differs greatly depending on what criterion is used to...