Trends in household saving don't justify tax incentives to boost saving
分析OECD国家家庭储蓄趋势，指出基于总量储蓄的政策危险，通过分解不同世代的生命周期消费、收入和储蓄，发现没有证据表明当前需要税收优惠来刺激储蓄。
Summary Household saving Analysing the saving behaviour of different generationsDespite diverse trends in household saving in OECD countries, many governments are introducing tax incentives designed to boost saving by particular groups. Such schemes have been justified by many trends, including increasing income inequality, ageing populations, and greater cross-border competition. It is dangerous, however, to base policy on what is happening to aggregate household saving alone. First, personal saving should be viewed within a lifecycle context. Saving may look inadequate today, but households may already have made plans to redress this in future. Second, data on aggregate saving conceal significant differences between different household groups. Only disaggregation yields reliable inferences on which policy can be based. In particular, it is impossible to assess the consequences of demographic changes without analysis that distinguishes between different generations.We reassess household saving by computing the evolution of lifetime profiles of consumption, income and saving of different cohorts over time, and then analyse the effect of demographic and other changes. We find little evidence for the assertion that tax incentives to promote national saving are needed now to stave off a future drought in household saving.— Orazio Attanasio and James Banks