Savings behavior among immigrants and their U.S.-born children: A test of the culture-transplant model
研究了移民及其美国出生子女的储蓄行为，发现个人储蓄与祖籍国储蓄率显著相关，表明储蓄行为具有文化基础且能跨代持续。
The economic impact of immigration involves the movement of more than just labor and capital. Under the culture-transplant model, immigrants carry from their birth countries distinctive values and behaviors that they transmit to their descendants in their new countries. This study tests the model by examining the savings disposition of immigrants and their U.S.-born children. It finds a robust link between individuals’ savings and the national savings rates of their ancestral countries. In a midrange estimate, a 1 percentage-point increase in ancestral-country savings rates is associated with a 1 percent increase in retirement savings among second-generation immigrants. These results suggest that savings behavior has a cultural basis that persists in the generation after migration.