National culture and national savings: is there a link?

We study the effect of national culture on economic decisions, focusing on GLOBE cultural dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and future orientation. Specifically, we study the effect of divergence between cultural values and practices (societal aspirations), on the aggregate savings decision. Using the life-cycle model of savings as our basic model, we find that societal aspirations are important in explaining national savings behavior. In particular, we show that societal aspirations relating to future orientation and uncertainty avoidance have a positive effect on the rate of savings. We interpret our findings to indicate that such societal aspirations lead to mistrust in the societal arrangements and institutions, and induce savings as a means of securing the future and reducing uncertainty. To substantiate this interpretation, we utilize the microfinance industry; showing that high societal aspirations are associated with preference for savings through member-owned microfinance institutions (MFIs) over savings through non-member-owned MFIs.     

Household Response to Government Debt: Evidence from Life Insurance Holdings

We use state‐level panel data on life insurance in force in the United States and find that a $1 increase in government debt, at either the state or federal level is associated with a $0.96 increase in the face value of the average life insurance holdings per capita for a household in the average state. This increase represents an intention to save that would almost completely offset the government debt in specific states of the world (i.e., if the insured dies). Because this state of the world is rare, the immediate increase in actual savings is only about $0.03, the cost of the additional insurance. We find, in addition, that this response occurs mainly on the intensive margin, meaning that the size of the average life insurance policy increases when government debt increases. Along the extensive margin, we find the number of policies in force falls slightly with federal debt, and rises slightly with state debt increases. The results show altruistic planning in response to changes in government debt that are consistent with Ricardian Equivalence and the long‐run neutrality of government debt.     

国际代工关系中本土代工企业的风险及防范策略

代工模式是本土多数厂商与跨国公司合作及赖以生存的主要方式.在为跨国公司代工的过程中,本土企业要承担更高的产业风险以及合作的关系风险,而发展自主的产品品牌又会影响原代工业务的发展,陷入"代工"与"自创品牌"的两难困境.文章运用战略联盟理论对代工企业各种风险的形成进行了分析,并提出了相应的防范策略.     

Nature and determinants of household retirement savings behaviour in South Africa

This study investigates the savings behaviour among South African households using the General Household Survey data for the periods 2002–04 and 2008–10. The age-cohort analysis shows that households achieve their income peaks when the household heads are in their early forties, earlier than in most other countries. Although initial support for the life-cycle hypothesis framework in the form of smoothed consumption was found from multivariate analysis, a closer examination reveals that the consumption–income ratio is also smooth over the age and cohort variables. This indicates that savings rates do not follow a hump-shape pattern as required in the life-cycle hypothesis framework. While households are seen to be able to maintain their consumption in retirement years through government grants, a large portion of the grants seem to be utilised for savings. This shows that the government grants have the dual effect of sustaining consumption levels while disincentivising savings during working years.     

Estimating the elasticity of intertemporal substitution taking into account the precautionary savings motive

This paper estimates the elasticity of intertemporal substitution for U.S. aggregate time series data, taking into account the precautionary savings motive. By making use of a recursive utility function, we estimate an Euler equation, via GMM. This procedure leads consumption growth rate to depend on asset returns, and on a time-varying variance, which captures the precautionary motive. When significant, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution estimates ranges from 0.4 to 1.8, which are higher than most of the results found in the literature. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that consumers react to risk; however, the contribution of precautionary motive to consumption growth seems to be limited.     

Why do firms hold so much cash? An innovation explanation

Theory holds that knowledge has positive economic consequences. While US corporations defend record high level cash holdings citing the precautionary motive in response to changing firm characteristics, I find that knowledge‐based innovation can partially explain these changes. Using distance to the nearest research university as a measure of knowledge intensity, I show that knowledge‐intensive firms hold more cash, even after controlling for firm R&D. Moreover, knowledge‐intensive firms exhibit higher marginal value of cash and save more cash from cash flows than their less knowledge‐intensive counterparts. Overall, the precautionary motive appears to dominate the agency motive, with the effect of knowledge on cash holdings strengthening over time. Copyright © 2014 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

International Capital Mobility and Saving-Investment Relationship in the Newly Industrialized Countries

This paper investigates the Feldstein-Horioka coefficients and evaluates the degree of international capital mobility for ten newly industrialized countries (NICs) over the different sub-periods from 1970 to 2010. By applying the Pedroni and Westerlund cointegration tests, we find that saving and investment are indeed cointegrated. The estimated FH coefficients using FMOLS and DOLS are 0.24 and 0.33, respectively, for the period 1970–1980. Furthermore, the estimated FH coefficients reduce from 0.80 (FMOLS) in 1991–2000 to 0.36 (FMOLS) in 1970–1980. The small FH coefficients suggest that international capital mobility increased in the NICs during the sub-periods 1970–1980 and 2001–2010.     

How far is how far enough? Safety perception and acceptance of extra-high-voltage power lines in Germany

The results of a 2?×?2 factorial online experiment are reported. The first factor refers to the information on precautionary measures and the second factor on the information regarding the share of EMF exposure from extra-high-voltage power lines compared to overall EMF exposure measured in-house. The study is based on a community sample of 440 subjects. Information on the share of EMF exposure from extra-high-voltage power lines at the in-house overall EMF exposure has no statistically significant effect of safety distances and acceptance distances. Further findings indicate that communications of precautionary measures produce a countervailing effect: on average, subjects require a higher distance from their homes compared to those who were not informed about precautionary measures. However, there is also a positive effect of precautionary information on the acceptance belief. Subjects who received this information are, in average, less negative about the claim that compliance with the value limit is sufficient in order to agree with the construction of a power line. Possible explanations of the findings such as cognitive dissonance, negativity bias, and style of information processing are discussed.     

我国国债的最大可能发行空间估算与预测

根据资产选择理论,国债的发行取决于国债利率和居民对国债资产需求的大小。目前,预防性储蓄存款是制约我国国债需求的关键因素,因此,以往反映居民应债能力的指标需重新考察。采用ARIMA模型对我国国债潜在需求能力进行估算和预测,结果表明,我国国债规模已经接近国债的潜在需求能力,国债实际发行空间不容乐观。由于我国当前社会保障体系尚不完善,居民储蓄中用于养老、医疗、教育等预防性储蓄的比重仍然较高;因此,完善社会保障体系,释放预防性储蓄存款是增大国债可发行空间的重要途径之一。     

我国居民高储蓄率成因分析

当前,我国居民储蓄率高的原因,主要是国民收入分配差距大,历史传统文化和医疗、养老、住房、教育产业化等政策的误导以及投资环境发展滞后与投资渠道狭窄,社会保障制度不健全等方面。政府应通过深化制度改革,缩小收入分配差距,拓宽个人投资渠道;开发消费热点,引导居民合理地安排收入,建立健全社会保障制度,从而促进居民储蓄率适度增加。