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What determines the saving behavior of German households? : an examination of saving motives and saving decisions

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  • Schunk, Daniel
Abstract
Many motives for saving a portion of one’s income co-exist and their relative importance changes over the life-cycle. However, most existing work focuses on only one of those motives and makes simplifying assumptions about the other motives so that they can be relegated to the background. All the more it is important to investigate heterogeneity in saving behavior in the presence of various co-existing saving motives. This paper is concerned with linking heterogeneity in German households’ savings decisions to four coexisting saving motives. First, I find that the importance that households attach to the saving motives is related to how much households save at different life stages. Second, I classify the saver type of the households based on whether they engage in regular savings plans, or rather save irregularly and without a savings plan and I find that saving motives are related to the saver type of the household. The results show that heterogeneity in saving behavior along two dimensions – with respect to the saving rate and the saver type – is systematically related to the importance that households attach to different saving motives. This suggests that policy reforms that change the importance of certain saving motives in the eyes of private households might alter household saving behavior in various ways.

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  • Schunk, Daniel, 2007. "What determines the saving behavior of German households? : an examination of saving motives and saving decisions," Papers 07-10, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    • Handle: RePEc:mnh:spaper:2557
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    Cited by:

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    2. Bartzsch Nikolaus, 2008. "Precautionary Saving and Income Uncertainty in Germany – New Evidence from Microdata," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 228(1), pages 5-24, February.
    3. Bettina Lamla, 2013. "Family background and the decision to provide for old age: a siblings approach," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 483-504, August.
    4. Hans Peter Grüner, 2009. "Kapitalbeteiligung von Mitarbeitern. Eine Bewertung der jüngsten Vorschläge," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 10(2), pages 175-188, May.
    5. Busl, Claudia & Iliewa, Zwetelina & Jokisch, Sabine & Kappler, Marcus & Roscher, Thomas & Schindler, Felix & Schleer, Frauke, 2012. "Endbericht an das Bundesministerium der Finanzen zum Forschungsauftrag fe 11/11: "Sparen und Investieren vor dem Hintergrund des demografischen Wandels"," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, number 110554.
    6. Konrad C. Schäfer, 2016. "The Influence of Personality Traits on Private Retirement Savings in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 867, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    7. Mathias Sommer, 2007. "Savings motives and the effectiveness of tax incentives – an analysis based on the demand for life insurance in Germany," MEA discussion paper series 07125, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    8. Julia Le Blanc & Alessandro Porpiglia & Federica Teppa & Junyi Zhu & Michael Ziegelmeyer, 2014. "Household saving behaviour and credit constraints in the euro area," BCL working papers 93, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    9. Dolores Moreno-Herrero & Manuel Salas-Velasco & José Sánchez-Campillo, 2017. "Individual Pension Plans in Spain: How Expected Change in Future Income and Liquidity Constraints Shape the Behavior of Households," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 596-613, December.
    10. Zeynep Copur & Michael S. Gutter, 2019. "Economic, Sociological, and Psychological Factors of the Saving Behavior: Turkey Case," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 305-322, June.
    11. Dummann, Kathrin, 2008. "Retirement saving and attitude towards financial intermediaries: Evidence for Germany," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 99, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

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