Did Scarce Global Savings Finance the US Real Estate Bubble? The “Global Saving Glut” thesis from a Stock Flow Consistent Perspective

Fabian Lindner

No 155-2015, IMK Working Paper from IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute

Abstract: There is a consensus among the majority of economists that the credit supply is limited by current household saving. If governments or foreigners ran deficits, they would absorb this limited saving so that firms could not borrow any longer and had to reduce their investment. This is the "Loanable Funds'' theory. Ben Bernanke's "Global Saving Glut'' thesis is based on this view. According to Bernanke, the US depended on South East Asian and commodity exporting countries' scarce saving to finance the US real estate boom. Using simple accounting rules, the article shows however that credit is never limited by current saving. Often, the exact opposite it true: people can only save after others have taken on credit and paid incomes. This is also the case with the US and its trade partners and creditors: since non-Americans accept the US-Dollar as a means of payment - which only the US can produce - Americans give credit to themselves to finance their current account deficits. Each Dollar that non-Americans invest in the US has either been earned or borrowed in the US before. By their deficits, the US does not absorb scarce saving but allows other countries to increase their income and saving.

Keywords: Investment; Finance; Saving; Current Account Imbalances; Credit Supply; Global Saving Glut; Loanable Funds Theory; Financial Crisis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B2 B4 E2 E5 F3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac, nep-pke and nep-sea
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