Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/251831 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers of the Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour" No. 33
Publisher: 
Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin
Abstract: 
Using microeconomic data on 2,500 savers of the savings bank Ludwigsburg, we study individual savings behavior in 19th century-Germany. We show that wealthy savers responded to an increase in the expected inflation rate (and falling real interest rate) by increasing their savings, suggesting that they pursued a real saving target that could only be defended by saving more when investment conditions became adverse. Workers' savings behavior changed over time. For a long time, poorer, often female, working-class savers were forced to reduce their savings in times of high prices because they had to spend most of their income on essential consumer goods. This changed in the 1880s, when the living conditions of the working class improved significantly due to rising real wages and greater social security. We therefore observe a structural break in the savings regime: the originally negative relationship between inflation expectations and savings was reversed into a positive one. Looking only at the aggregate may obscure the true motives and changes in behavior of heterogeneous savers.
Subjects: 
expectations
inflation
industrialization
inequality
heterogeneous savers
JEL: 
D15
E21
N33
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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