Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/67120 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Ruhr Economic Papers No. 363
Publisher: 
Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI), Essen
Abstract: 
According to the German SAVE survey, more than 40 percent of households regularly save fixed amounts rather than flexibly adjusting savings to income variations as assumed by the Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH). Fixed amount saving behaviour could thus imply a challenge to PIH-based standard models of consumption if it meant that a substantial share of households would consume rather than save transitory income. A deeper examination of the SAVE-data suggests that the PIH could still be compatible with fixed amount saving behaviour since (a) the transitory income component of fixed amount savers' tends to be relatively low and (b) one-off receipts of income likely to be transitory increase the probability of fi xed amount savers to alter their saving behaviour and save the residual. Analysis of aggregate data, however, indicates that fixed amount saving nevertheless leads to a rejection of the PIH, accounting for at least some of the excess sensitivity of consumption to predictable income changes observed in Germany.
Subjects: 
Fixed Amounts Saving
Permanent Income Hypothesis
Consumption
Excess Sensitivity
JEL: 
D11
D12
E21
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-3-86788-417-4
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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