The Relevance of Precautionary Saving

Abstract. This paper develops a model of personal saving that includes, unlike previous models appearing in the literature, an explicit role for the Leland–Kimball measure of prudence. Estimation of the model using Bank of Italy survey data suggests that about 20 per cent of total saving is driven by precautionary reasons.     

A Precautionary Tale of Uncertain Tail Fattening

Suppose that there is a probability density function for how bad things might get, but that the overall rate at which this probability density function slims down to approach zero in the tail is uncertain. The paper shows how a basic precautionary principle of tail fattening could then apply. The worse is the contemplated damage, the more should a decision maker consider the bad tail to be among the relatively fatter-tailed possibilities. A rough numerical example is applied to the uncertain tail distribution of climate sensitivity.     

生态节能建筑全寿命周期经济评价

文章论述了生态节能建筑的概念,揭示全寿命周期成本的内涵,主要引用了绿色GDP概念,运用差额比较法将评价指标分为成本增量指标和效益增量指标来进行评估,并在此基础上建立了经济综合性动态评价,能够较为全面地反映生态节能建筑在经济、社会、环境方面的表现,有助于推进建筑业的可持续发展。     

Risk Pooling, Precautionary Saving and Consumption Growth

In this paper we model the evolution of income risk and consumption growth. We decompose the time series innovation of the income process into its common and cohort-specific components. From these we compute conditional variances which are used as separate risk terms in a consumption growth equation. Using a long series of British household data we exploit the time-series variation to identify precautionary saving effects and find strong evidence of their importance. Specifically, after allowing for demographic and labour market status, there is an independent role for income risk in explaining consumption growth. Rather than the component that is common across cohorts, however, it is the cohort-specific element that is important in determining changes in consumption growth. This result points to a failure of between-cohort insurance mechanisms.     

Uncertain Pension Income and Household Saving

This paper investigates the relationship between household saving and pensions, and estimates both the displacement effect of pensions on private saving and the precautionary saving effect due to uncertainty in pension income. I estimate the savings equation implied by a simple life‐cycle model featuring income uncertainty using survey data for Dutch households, with subjective expectations on pension benefits and uncertainty. Exploiting exogenous variation due to pension fund performance, I find that households save significantly more due to uncertainty in pension income. Not controlling for uncertainty biases the estimated displacement effect of pensions on private savings towards zero.     

Precautionary Saving,Financial Risk,and Portfolio Choice

Relying on a direct question about the desired amount of precautionary wealth from the 2002 wave of the Italian “Survey of Household Income and Wealth,” I assess the main determinants of the precautionary motive for saving, focusing on the role played by financial risk on households' saving decisions. Households that invest mainly in safe assets do not need to protect themselves against future and unexpected financial losses. Consequently, once we control for households' sources of risk beside financial ones, the amount of precautionary savings of a household investing exclusively in safe assets should be lower compared to households who detain a non‐negligible share of risky assets in their portfolio. Results show that, as expected, a strong and negative correlation exists between the desired amount of precautionary wealth and the ownership of a portfolio made exclusively of safe assets.     

预防性储蓄动机强度的时序变化与地区差异——基于中国农村居民的实证研究

本文选择中国农村居民1992—2006年间的分省面板数据,采用固定效应—工具变量法(FE-IV)对我国农村居民预防性储蓄动机强度及其地区差异、时序变化展开了详细的实证研究。结果表明,我国农村居民存在很强的预防性储蓄动机,并且西部农村居民的预防性储蓄动机强于中部与东部农村居民;然而滚动回归表明,就全国而言,样本分析区间内我国农村居民的相对谨慎性系数起先还比较平稳,然后呈不断上升的趋势,到最后阶段稍有下降;而分地区的滚动回归结果则表明,各个地区之间存在较大的差异。本文最后在从多个角度对实证结果进行解释的基础上为缓解我国农村居民储蓄快速增长提出了若干政策建议。     

Precautionary Saving and Health Insurance: A Portfolio Choice Perspective

This paper analyzes the impact of health insurance on household portfolio choice. Using the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finance and Health Retirement Survey databases, it finds that insured households are more likely to own stocks and invest a larger proportion of financial assets in stocks than uninsured households do. The results remain strong even after controlling for household characteristics and reverse causality. Further, the results are robust across different survey years and data sources. It suggests that a precautionary motive is strong in household portfolio choice decisions.     

中国城市的失业、消费平滑和预防性储蓄

一、导言 经济冲击随时都会发生,特别在发展中国家,不管是基于正常的商业周期、金融冲击还是经济结构调整.最近的亚洲金融危机只是众多例子中的一个.     

Technology and the Life Cycle of Cities

During times of major technological change, leadingcities are often overtaken by upstart metropolitan areas. Suchupheavals may be explained if the advantage of established urbancenters rests on localized learning by doing. When a new technologyis introduced, for which this accumulated experience is irrelevant,older centers prefer to stay with a technology in which theyare more efficient. New centers, however, turn to the new technologyand are competitive despite the raw state of that technologybecause of their lower land rents and wages. Over time, as thenew technology matures, the established cities are overtaken.     

行业生命周期、企业生命周期与混合并购绩效的实证研究

以沪深两市发生混合并购的上市公司为对象,分析样本企业所在的行业生命周期与企业生命周期处于不同组合状态时,混合并购绩效的差异,以探寻适合混合并购发生的外在条件与内在时机。首先,将样本企业所在的行业生命周期和企业生命周期分为成长、成熟、衰退三个阶段,据此将样本企业按其所处的"行业-企业"生命周期的不同组合状态分为九组;其次,以独立样本t检验法和多元线性回归法,研究在九种不同组合状态下,样本企业混合并购绩效的差异。本文的结论为:企业处于"行业衰退-企业衰退"生命周期组合状态时,混合并购后绩效得到显著改善;而无论行业生命周期处于何种阶段,成长期企业实施混合并购均不利于绩效改善。     

虚拟团队生命周期管理对策研究

从虚拟团队生命周期的角度对虚拟团队各阶段面临的问题进行考察,从制度建设、人际信任和技术保障3个方面分析具体的挑战,并针对这些问题和挑战提出应对策略和管理方法。     

社会责任与家族企业生命周期

社会责任的履行与家族企业生命周期之间存在相关关系.本文在借鉴国外家族企业社会责任履行的成功案例基础上,构建社会责任与家族企业生命周期演变模型,分析中国本土家族企业社会责任履行的不同特征以及社会责任对家族企业生命周期的影响,探讨了中国家族企业的可持续变迁路径.     

生命周期管理研究现状与展望

建立在生命周期评价理论与方法基础上的生命周期管理逐渐引起了研究机构、企业和公众的关注。文章通过文献综述,从概念框架和应用实践两方面总结了国内外生命周期管理的研究进展,发现当前关于生命周期管理的研究多是基于生命周期评价的结果,针对不同的管理对象采取相应的管理措施;国外生命周期管理实践已在产品、企业和行业等不同层面成功开展,国内的相关研究和应用则相对滞后。通过梳理生命周期管理的研究现状,对未来研究重点和发展方向作了展望,以期为生命周期管理在各领域的广泛应用起到抛砖引玉的作用。     

The Life Cycle of Terrorist Organizations

It is a fact that terrorist organizations come and go. This empirical fact tends to draw attention to the demise of the terrorist organization and distracts from the dynamics of the terrorist organization’s life cycle. In this respect, the extant literature suffers from a serious weakness that is symptomatic of the absence from the literature of a rigorous theoretical explanation for the life cycle of terrorist organizations. This paper aims to address this by developing a theoretical explanation for the life cycle of terrorist organizations that is centered on competition for grassroots or popular support between the terrorist organization and the government. The decline and demise of a particular terrorist organization is not certain ex ante and a terrorist organization may be expected to be most dangerous not in its death throes, but during its early years as it competes with the government for grassroots support. These appear to be different conclusions to those that characterise some parts of the literature on this subject. The theoretical explanation developed herein also predicts a cyclical oscillation of conflict.     

天津市城镇职工基本医疗保险住院患者医疗费用因子分析

目的:探寻住院医疗费用的影响因素,为合理配置公共卫生资源、有效控制医疗费用提供参考和借鉴。方法:以天津市2007年城镇职工医疗保险10%的住院患者为样本,使用SPSS18.0进行因子分析。结果:药品治疗检查费因子、手术相关费用因子及成分输血因子是影响住院医疗费用的三个支配因子。结论:控制城镇职工医疗保险住院医疗费用过度增长,应着力控制药品费和医用材料费。     

Austrian Cycle Theory: Saving the Wheat while Discarding the Chaff

The Review of Austrian Economics -     

经济转型期中国农村居民预防性储蓄研究 --1978～2003年实证研究

文章利用1978～2003年样本数据通过消费函数的变参数空间状态模型研究了经济转型期中国农村居民超敏感度消费行为,实证研究结果表明,农户存在着显著的"预防性储蓄"动机.在此基础上,文章利用附加"预防性储蓄"动机的消费模型和ARCH结构对预防性动机强度进行了估计,检验结果发现未来预期收入中存在显著的不确定性,这表明在目前农村总需求不足的情形下,降低"预防性储蓄"动机和流动性约束将是扩张社会消费需求的重要政策.     

房价上涨影响居民消费的作用机制分析——基于预防性储蓄效应视角

通过引入流动性约束和不确定性等因素,分析了房价波动影响居民消费的预防性储蓄效应这一作用机制。研究发现,不论是从长期还是短期来看,房价上涨通过预防性储蓄效应对居民消费产生负面影响,换言之,房价上涨通过不确定性因素和流动性约束导致居民预防性储蓄增加最终会使居民消费下降,短期内预防性储蓄效应的影响系数要小于其长期影响系数。