Fertility and Savings: The Effect of China’s Two-Child Policy on Household Savings / Scott R. Baker, Efraim Benmelech, Zhishu Yang, Qi Zhang.

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Baker, Scott R

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w29856.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

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Abstract: China's high household savings rate has attracted great academic interest but remains a puzzle. Potential explanations include demographic, policy, and financial causes. Yet a lack of reliable microlevel data on household finances makes it difficult to assess the relative importance of each factor. This paper uses individual income and spending transactions linked to demographic characteristics and financial information on loan applications and credit availability from a large Chinese bank in Inner Mongolia. We match a large subset of bank customers to administrative records covering marriage and births and obtain a unique view into consumption and saving patterns around important life events. Our results point toward identifying income growth, financial instability, and credit access, rather than such directives as the one-child policy, as the primary causes of high levels of savings among Chinese households.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w29856 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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March 2022.

China's high household savings rate has attracted great academic interest but remains a puzzle. Potential explanations include demographic, policy, and financial causes. Yet a lack of reliable microlevel data on household finances makes it difficult to assess the relative importance of each factor. This paper uses individual income and spending transactions linked to demographic characteristics and financial information on loan applications and credit availability from a large Chinese bank in Inner Mongolia. We match a large subset of bank customers to administrative records covering marriage and births and obtain a unique view into consumption and saving patterns around important life events. Our results point toward identifying income growth, financial instability, and credit access, rather than such directives as the one-child policy, as the primary causes of high levels of savings among Chinese households.