Household Savings in Selected Southern European Countries Evidence from Cross-Country Micro-Level Data

The paper looks into the puzzle of low household savings in three Southern European (SE3) countries – Cyprus, Greece, and Portugal. Building on the household saving drivers literature, we employ cross-country micro-level data and investigate the key saving patterns, examining their heterogeneity acr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Dybczak, Kamil
Other Authors: Hua, Shiqing, Jarmuzek, Mariusz, Zhang, Ruifeng
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2023
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:The paper looks into the puzzle of low household savings in three Southern European (SE3) countries – Cyprus, Greece, and Portugal. Building on the household saving drivers literature, we employ cross-country micro-level data and investigate the key saving patterns, examining their heterogeneity across households in SE3 countries relative to the EA average. The results confirm the prominent role of income, along with interest rate, inflation, fiscal balance, and debt in shaping household savings in SE3 countries. Quantile regressions employed to analyze saving behavior across the distribution of households suggest that households with lower savings tend to see their savings dip (or dissavings rise) more-than-proportionately with shocks to income, interest rate, inflation, and government balance. Our policy simulations across the distribution of households suggest that targeted rather than universal policy intervention could improve household savings, especially of the most vulnerable ones
Physical Description:50 pages
ISBN:9798400249075