Brothers, Household Financial Markets and Savings Rate in China

Weina Zhou ()

Working Papers from Dalhousie University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This study analyzes the effect of the number of brothers an individual has on that individual’s household savings rate under the current underdeveloped household financial market in urban China. I show that having an additional brother reduces an individual’s household savings rate by at least five percentage points. Brothers help households by (1) sharing risks, providing a source of informal borrowing and (2) sharing the cost of supporting parents. Sisters play a minor role in affecting a household’s savings rate, mainly because of cultural norms. The decline in the average number of brothers in households induced by population policies explained at least one-third of the increased aggregate household savings rate in urban China.

Keywords: Household Savings; Family Structure; Financial Market Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2014-03-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Published in Journal of Development Economics, November 2014, pages 34-47

Downloads: (external link)
http://wp.economics.dal.ca/RePEc/dal/wpaper/DalEconWP2014-03.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Brothers, household financial markets and savings rate in China (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dal:wpaper:daleconwp2014-03

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Dalhousie University, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by James McNeil ().