 The Chinese saving puzzle and the life-cycle hypothesis: A revaluationChi-Chur Chao, Jean-Pierre Laffargue and Eden Yu China Economic Review, 2011, vol. 22, issue 1, 108-120 Abstract: In a stimulating paper, Modigliani and Cao (2004) concluded that most of the huge increase in the household saving rate in China since 1975, the 'Chinese saving puzzle', can be explained by the life-cycle hypothesis. Their analysis is based on the estimation of reduced form equations. However, a structural model of their hypothesis would impose constraints on these equations. For not taking them into account, their test of the life-cycle hypothesis lacks power. In this paper, we develop a structural model of household saving behavior based on the life-cycle hypothesis for the Chinese economy. We find that the life-cycle hypothesis can explain only 35% of the surge of the Chinese household saving. We then add to the model the strong motivation of young adults for buying a home and the financial support they receive from their parent for that. In this way, the model can reproduce the high and increasing level of saving since the mid-nineties. Nonetheless the increase in household saving, which took place during the eighties, may not be explained by the life-cycle hypothesis. Keywords: Life-cycle; Household; saving; China (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:22:y:2011:i:1:p:108-120 Access Statistics for this article China Economic Review is currently edited by B.M. Fleisher, K. X. D. Huang, M.E. Lovely, Y. Wen, X. Zhang and X. Zhu More articles in China Economic Review from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to econpapers@oru.se.
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.