The DOI matches its Crossref record; 87 of the 87 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Do the Rich Save More?
Abstract
The question of whether higher–lifetime income households save a larger fraction of their income was the subject of much debate in the 1950s and 1960s, and while not resolved, it remains central to the evaluation of tax and macroeconomic policies. We resolve this long‐standing question using new empirical methods applied to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Survey of Consumer Finances, and the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We find a strong positive relationship between saving rates and lifetime income and a weaker but still positive relationship between the marginal propensity to save and lifetime income. There is little support for theories that seek to explain these positive correlations by relying solely on time preference rates, nonhomothetic preferences, or variations in Social Security benefits. There is more support for models emphasizing uncertainty with respect to income and health expenses, bequest motives, and asset‐based means testing or behavioral factors causing minimal saving rates among low‐income households.
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Cites
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Cited by
From Physical to Human Capital Accumulation: Inequality and the Process of Development
Galor, O., & Moav, O. (2004) · Review of Economic Studies · doi:10.1111/0034-6527.00312 · Cited by 1,317
Optimal Financial Knowledge and Wealth Inequality
Lusardi, A., Michaud, P.-C., & Mitchell, O. S. (2017) · Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1086/690950 · Cited by 690
A Model of Secular Stagnation: Theory and Quantitative Evaluation
Eggertsson, G. B., Mehrotra, N. R., & Robbins, J. A. (2019) · American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics · doi:10.1257/mac.20170367 · Cited by 405
Choi, S., Kariv, S., Müller, W., & Silverman, D. (2014) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.104.6.1518 · Cited by 277
Grand Advantage: Family Wealth and Grandchildren’s Educational Achievement in Sweden
Hällsten, M., & Pfeffer, F. T. (2017) · American Sociological Review · doi:10.1177/0003122417695791 · Cited by 187
Metadata
- Authors
- Dynan, K. E., Skinner, J., & Zeldes, S. P.
- Venue
- Journal of Political Economy
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 2004-04
- Volume
- 112
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 397-444
- ISSN
- 0022-3808 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-534X
- OpenAlex
- W2110373114
- Cited by
- 1,019
- References
- 87
- FWCI
- 132.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
