The spirit of capitalism and savings behavior

Heng-Fu Zou ()

No 79, CEMA Working Papers from China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics

Abstract: This paper presents a capitalist-spirit model of savings by including wealth in the intertemporal utility function. While this model includes the life-cycle model and bequest model as two special cases, it sheds light on why wealth holding has tended to increase with age, why decumulation of wealth after retirement has not happened, and why households with and without children have not shown significant differences in their savings behavior. The capitalist-spirit approach is especially useful for understanding savings by the rich and savings across countries and over time.

Keywords: Savings puzzle; Capitalist spirit; Wealth accumulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13 pages
Date: 1995
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (95)

Published in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 28, Issue 1, September 1995, Pages 131-143

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Journal Article: The spirit of capitalism and savings behavior (1995)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cuf:wpaper:79

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