The Competitive Saving Motive: Evidence from Rising Sex Ratios and Savings Rates in China
研究发现中国性别比上升促使有儿子的家庭为提升儿子婚姻竞争力而增加储蓄，这种压力会扩散到其他家庭，可解释1990-2007年间约一半的储蓄率增长。
The high and rising household savings rate in China is not easily reconciled with the traditional explanations that emphasize life cycle factors, the precautionary saving motive, financial development, or habit formation. This paper proposes a new competitive saving motive: as the sex ratio rises, Chinese parents with a son raise their savings in a competitive manner in order to improve their son's relative attractiveness for marriage. The pressure on savings spills over to other households. Both cross-regional and household-level evidence supports this hypothesis. This factor can potentially account for about half the actual increase in the household savings rate during 1990-2007.