eprintid: 15244 rev_number: 36 eprint_status: archive userid: 600 dir: disk0/00/01/52/44 datestamp: 2009-04-28 14:18:04 lastmod: 2015-07-23 09:36:43 status_changed: 2009-04-28 14:18:04 type: working_paper metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Attanasio, O. creators_id: OPATT42 title: A cohort analysis of saving behaviour by US households ispublished: pub subjects: 12000 divisions: F24 keywords: JEL classification: E21, D12 note: Please see http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/14761/ for related item abstract: In this paper I analyze the pattern of saving behavior by U.S. households, using the Consumer Expenditure (CEX) Survey. The analysis' main goal is to explain the decline in aggregate personal saving in the United States in the 1980s. I estimate a typical' saving-age profile and identify systematic movements of the profile across different cohorts of U.S. households. In addition, I consider different definitions of saving and control for a number of factors that figure in popular explanations of the decline in saving. The main results can be summarized as follows: 1) the typical' saving-age profile presents a pronounced hump' and peaks around age 60; 2) this typical' age profile was, at least during the 1980s, shifted down for those cohorts born between 1925 and 1939. This is consistent with the low level of aggregate saving because these cohort were, in the 1980s, in that part of their life cycle when saving is highest; 3) this results holds for various definition of saving with one notable exception; the decline is less pronounced when expenditure on durables is considered as saving; and 4) some other popular explanations of the decline in saving are rejected by the data, including those appealing to the presence of capital gains on real or financial assets. date: 1993-09 publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research official_url: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4454 vfaculties: VSHS oa_status: green language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green lyricists_name: Attanasio, O lyricists_id: OPATT42 full_text_status: public series: NBER Working Papers number: 4454 place_of_pub: Cambridge, US citation: Attanasio, O.; (1993) A cohort analysis of saving behaviour by US households. (NBER Working Papers 4454). National Bureau of Economic Research: Cambridge, US. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/15244/1/15244.pdf