Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/229379 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2020/155
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Resource mobilization continues to be an important policy challenge for developing economies, raising questions as to what determines differences in saving behaviour across countries. Using a panel of 47 economies with at least 40 years of continuous time series data, we causally identify, using a range of approaches, that higher productivity growth leads to greater savings, thereby contributing to higher investment. The dynamics of such productivity shocks have been disentangled into trend and cyclical shocks to uncover that cyclical productivity shocks tend to have a strong positive effect on saving rates. Comparing two countries with different levels of productivity (high and low) in a counterfactual analysis, this result remains robust, and we reconfirm that large declines in productivity shocks were associated with large decline in saving rates. Countries should focus on promoting policies to boost productivity growth and thereby achieve higher savings instead of focusing on savings-induced policies alone.
Subjects: 
saving
productivity growth
trend shock
cyclical shock
causal identification
JEL: 
E21
E22
E32
E60
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-912-9
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.