The Impact of Social Safety Net Programs on Household Savings in Colombia

This paper seeks to understand and quantify how social safety net programs impact household savings in developing countries, considering the case of Colombia using two complementary approaches. The first approach explores how the health regime affects savings in the country. The second evaluates the impact on savings of familias en acción, a major antipoverty conditional cash transfer program. The results suggest that the savings of informal households are higher than those of formal households, because, with little incentive to enter the formal job market, informal households need to cover slightly greater non‐covered risks. The results also show that familias en acción recipients save more than non‐recipients because recipients favorably adjust their expenditure patterns.     

The Wealthy Hand-to-Mouth Households in South Korea

This study establishes the stylized facts on household balance sheets in South Korea and empirically investigates their macroeconomic implications based on the concept of ‘wealthy hand-to-mouth (HtM)’ households that hold little liquid wealth with owning large amount of illiquid assets. Using a household-level panel data for the period of 2000–2014, we find that (1) there are neither deleveraging of household debts nor a sharp decline in house price even during the financial crisis, (2) run-up in household debt in 2000s is led by high-income group, (3) regardless of net worth level, wealth is highly concentrated on illiquid assets such as housing and real estate, (4) the share of wealthy HtM households is very high compared to the cases of other advanced countries. We estimate the marginal propensity to consume out of a transitory shock and find that the consumption response of HtM households is larger compared to the non-credit-constrained group, posing a threat to macroeconomic stability. Using discrete choice models with fixed effects, we also find that a household that acquire more real estate assets is more likely to become wealthy HtM when its income is relatively lower or its indebtedness is relatively higher. We discuss the characteristics of HtM households and the role of macroprudential policy.     

数字普惠金融发展影响家庭资产配置结构了吗

2016年,我国政府提出发展数字普惠金融,倡导利用数字化技术提高金融体系的普惠水平。文章以数字普惠金融发展为切入点,研究了其对家庭资产配置的影响。使用2017年CHFS调查数据、北京大学数字普惠金融指数和中国城市统计年鉴数据,实证发现数字普惠金融能显著提高家庭参与金融市场和股票市场的概率,提高配置风险资产和股票资产的比例,此结果经过多种稳健性检验后保持一致。这一影响在城镇地区的家庭和使用第三方支付的家庭中更显著。这一影响的作用机制是数字金融降低了家庭参与成本、增加了金融可得性和扩宽了信息渠道。文章为数字普惠金融发展影响家庭金融行为提供了实证证据。     

Personal savings,ethnicity and redistribution

The effects on personal savings of measures to equalise incomes are prominent in current policy debates. Both supporters and opponents of redistributive measures adopt the Keynesian position that greater income equality will itself reduce savings. However, not only income level affects household savings. Different ethnic groups have very different savings behaviour: surveys suggest that black households in the larger urban areas have a higher savings function than white households and a higher marginal propensity to save. Equalising incomes in South Africa implies shifting income to black households from white ones. In these circumstances redistributive measures could actually increase savings. These findings do not, however, point to specific measures to achieve that end or indicate how redistributive measures themselves could shift the savings functions of the various ethnic groups. Nor do they ensure that higher personal savings will translate efficiently into higher investment.     

Financial instruments of the poor: initial findings from the South African Financial Diaries study

A new data set called the South African Financial Diaries has been produced, based on a sample of 166 households, drawn from three different areas in South Africa – Langa, Lugangeni and Diepsloot. The selected households represent a range of dwelling types and wealth categories. A unique methodology was used to create a year-long daily data set of every income, expense and financial transaction used by every one of these households. Within this sample, households used, on average, 17 different financial instruments over the course of the study year. A composite household portfolio, based on all 166 households, would have an average of four savings instruments, two insurance instruments and 11 credit instruments. The same composite household portfolio would have about 30 per cent formal instruments and 70 per cent informal instruments. Interestingly, it was found that rural households use as many financial instruments as urban ones.     

Are the actual and intended sources of financial knowledge the same? Evidence from Japan

The recent prolonged period of low economic growth and low interest rates in Japan demands that Japanese households invest in risky assets to accumulate sufficient retirement savings. In so doing, they acquire financial knowledge on these risky assets, typically from financial experts or salespersons in financial institutions. However, they may not necessarily be content with their current sources of financial knowledge because depending on their stage in the life cycle, they require different types of financial knowledge, usually from a variety of sources. Unfortunately, because of limitations in the data available, few studies have investigated whether the actual and intended sources of financial knowledge are the same. To address this research gap, this paper uses a Japanese household survey from 2010 to 2017, which provides unique information on the actual and intended sources of financial knowledge, and obtains two interesting results. First, a household’s actual sources of financial knowledge typically differ from its intended sources. More specifically, 33 % of households choosing financial institutions and experts and 52 % of households choosing financial institutions as their actual sources have a different intended source. Second, the discrepancy between actual and intended sources appears to relate to household demographic characteristics. Among those households choosing financial institutions and experts as their actual source of financial knowledge, 14 % choosing financial institutions as their intended source tend to have a lower level of financial knowledge and educational attainment. These results suggest that they have some difficulty understanding the advice of financial advisers. Among households choosing financial institutions as their actual source of financial knowledge, 26 % choosing financial institutions and experts as their intended source tend to have a larger amount of financial assets, better financial knowledge, and a preference for investing in risky assets; however, they also tend to be younger. This suggests they might want to obtain financial knowledge from financial experts to purchase risky financial assets as they age. While the study does not provide any causal evidence, the results suggest that understanding the reasons for any discrepancy in the actual and intended sources of financial knowledge may help financial institutions provide better services to these customers.     

How does the US credit crisis affect the Asia–Pacific economies?—Analysis based on a general equilibrium model

The current financial crisis differs from most post-war recessions in that the balance sheets of both households and banks have been severely damaged, which could lead to structural changes in the behavior of households. Therefore, it may exert some far-reaching effects on regional economies in the short run as well as in the medium term. This paper studies these effects using a multi-country dynamic structural model. In the short run, the US credit crisis weighs heavily upon the Asia–Pacific economies through financial linkages in addition to the traditional trade channel due to the deepening global financial integration. The relative importance of various financial channels differs notably across economies. While stock market contagion is more important for advanced economies, flight to quality across borders plays a key role in less developed economies. From a medium-term perspective, changes in the US household behavior caused by the credit crisis can help correct global imbalances, but the effectiveness hinges largely upon how long US households can maintain a reasonably higher savings rate. In addition, although the declining American public savings rate may not exert material impacts on the global imbalances, it can darken regional growth prospects due to a potentially higher world real interest rate.     

Household indebtedness in Korea: Its causes and sustainability

This paper investigates why household debt in Korea has increased so rapidly over the past decade and whether it is sustainable, adopting a multi-faceted approach which includes a time series analysis, a quantitative analysis based on household panel data, and an analysis using a debt dynamics equation derived from the household budget constraint. A regression analysis reveals that household debt growth has been significantly related to house price increases, banks’ lax attitudes toward household lending, and financial institutions’ favorable funding conditions. Also 70–80% of the total debt increase has been accounted for by high income or newly indebted households. The debt dynamics equation analysis shows that the rapid rise in the ratio of household debt to disposable income is attributable not only to the increase in household asset purchases but also to the dampened growth in disposable income and the reduced savings rate. The sustainability analyses indicate that Korean households’ debt sustainability is unlikely to deteriorate sharply within a short period of time unless two extreme scenarios, under which house prices decline by 5% a year over the next five years, or a significantly large macroeconomic shock similar to the 1997 crisis hits the economy, would be realized.     

Concepts and Measures of Saving: Selected Issues for South Africa

South African household savings rates have been declining steadily over the last five decades, raising concerns that the population structurally under‐saves. Against the background of new saving‐enhancing policy initiatives, this paper asks to what extent the concern is founded, and whether the measurement of saving is really appropriate to guide economic policy. Comparing different macroeconomic concepts and measurements of saving, we show that the measure of saving in the national accounts (the residual between income and expenditure) understates the household savings rate compared to other measures. Specifically, an alternative measure from the balance sheets (the change in wealth) yields a significantly higher and non‐declining figure. While households have not been “putting aside” their incomes, they have nevertheless grown richer, driven largely by the appreciation of asset valuations. We also examine the impact of taking non‐financial saving and wealth into account, and conclude that household sector saving on the aggregate is significantly higher than the national accounts suggest. However, these adjusted measures are most relevant for the upper tail of the income and wealth distribution, raising important distributional concerns.     

Keeping Your Financial Planner to Yourself: Racial and Cultural Differences in Financial Planner Referrals

Literature suggests that the use of a financial expert by Black households improves savings and investment behaviors. However, these households lack the financial knowledge and sophistication needed to select an appropriate financial expert. This admitted inability results in Black households relying on the recommendations of friends and family in selecting and hiring a financial expert. However results from this study suggest that Blacks who have successfully chosen a financial expert, i.e., are satisfied, are nearly two times (92 %) less likely than non-Blacks to refer their financial planner to others. Decomposition analyses indicate that over 80 % of satisfied Blacks should be willing to provide a referral yet only 50 % do. The largest significant component of the difference in referral rates is culturally based perception differences of the variables used in determining the net benefit of providing a referral.     

互联网普及如何影响中国家庭债务杠杆率

互联网技术的普及推动了数字金融、移动支付、金融科技等一系列金融创新的发展,基于此,文章利用中国家庭金融调查（CHFS）2017年的数据,细致探讨了互联网这一最基础的技术普及与家庭债务杠杆率的关系及内在作用机理。结果发现：（1）互联网的使用将显著推高家庭的债务杠杆率。在使用工具变量回归、处理效应模型与PSM匹配纠正内生性问题后,这一结论依然成立。（2）除通过促进电子支付、增加金融可及性外,互联网的使用还将通过提高信息搜寻与增强社会互动这两种渠道而带来家庭债务杠杆率的累积。（3）互联网的使用与家庭债务杠杆率间存在显著的非线性关系,即意味着只有当对互联网的使用达到一定程度后,其才会带来家庭债务风险。（4）对于受需求型信贷约束、低收入与中老年群体,互联网使用对这类群体债务杠杆率的影响程度更大。进一步地,除网络平台借款将推高家庭债务杠杆外,文章还考察了互联网的使用对民间借贷的影响,并发现其对家庭非正规借贷杠杆率的影响更为突出。而对于金融知识欠缺的家庭,其债务杠杆率更高。这说明,在鼓励使用互联网推动家庭参与金融市场的同时,也要注意防范过度使用互联网所带来的金融风险,而其中一种有效的途径便是普及金融知识教育,提高居民的金融素养。     

Who benefits from household energy transition? A cost-benefit analysis based on household survey data in China

Aiming to alleviate air pollution and carbon emissions from heating, Northern China mandatorily converted household heating energy from coal to electricity (Coal to Electricity), natural gas (Coal to Gas), and clean coal (Clean Coal Replacement). Based on large-scale household survey data in Beijing, this study provides a cost-benefit analysis of the transition program and distinguishes between social and private benefits. The results show that all three programs improve the welfare of society and households. Compared to the Clean Coal Replacement program, Coal to Electricity and Coal to Gas programs provide higher environmental benefits while bringing about larger costs, and thus the benefit-to-cost ratios are lower. We also find that private net benefits are lower than social net benefits, and household satisfaction with the programs is positively determined by private net benefits rather than social net benefits. Furthermore, households with lower income and larger housing areas are more likely to be harmed by the programs by a larger burden from the heating energy transition. These findings call attention to inequity issues during the household energy transition.     

Financial literacy,housing value and household financial market participation: Evidence from urban China

Using data from the 2012 consumer finance survey in China, we extend the literature on household finance by examining the effects of both financial literacy and housing value on household financial market participation, the role of which has been examined separately in the existing literature. The results show that financial literacy significantly improves the probability of household financial market participation, while the housing value has an obvious “crowding-out effect” on household financial market participation in urban China. Further research finds that the role of financial literacy in household financial market participation in households with a low housing value is stronger than that in households with a high housing value. Furthermore, the study of the regional differences shows that among households with a high housing value, financial literacy plays a more significant role in household bond market participation in less-developed cities. Among households with a low housing value, improvement in financial literacy plays a more significant role in household fund market participation in less-developed cities and under-developed cities. Our findings remain robust after alleviating potential bias due to endogenous problems by applying the instrumental variable (IV) method and propensity score matching (PSM) method. Finally, the paper proposes corresponding policy recommendations.     

Income volatility,household leverage,and consumption in Korea

Using the micro household data in Korea, we examine the effects of income volatility changes on households’ leverage and consumption. We found that households who faced increased income volatility lowered their leverage ratio. A one standard deviation increase in income volatility was associated with 1.3 ∼ 1.5 percentage point decrease in the leverage ratio. The effects of income volatility changes on households’ leverage choices varied with households’ borrowing constraints and other socioeconomic backgrounds. We also found that when faced with enlarged income uncertainty, households’ income coefficients on consumption were lowered. The income coefficient of average households was estimated to be around 0.16, while households with increased income volatility were around 0.12. In particular, similar to the relations in leverage ratio changes, consumptions among potentially borrowing-constrained households and those with ‘net-short’ position in real estate assets were more affected by increases in income volatility. This can be understood that households smoothed their consumption during the periods of increased income volatility, and this was shown in the smaller consumption elasticity on income. This can be attributed to the fact that faced with increased income volatility, households lower the risk exposure of their financial net wealth by lowering their leverage ratio.     

On the consumption insurance effects of long-term care insurance in Japan: Evidence from micro-level household data

Using micro-level household data in the 2001 Comprehensive Survey of the Living Conditions of the People on Health and Welfare compiled by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, this paper examines how having a household member in need of long-term nursing care can result in welfare losses measured in terms of consumption. In so doing, this study evaluates the role of the public long-term care insurance scheme implemented in Japan in April 2000. The results indicate that when households include a disabled family member, household consumption net of long-term care costs do not decrease as much as before the introduction of long-term care insurance. Further, when compared with the surveys conducted in 1998, the adverse effects on consumption net of long-term care costs have become much weaker. These findings suggest that the introduction of social insurance in 2000 helped Japanese households to reduce the welfare losses associated with a disabled family member.     

Participatory Product Design by Using Conjoint Analysis in the Rural Financial Market of Northern Vietnam

Analyzing secondary and primary data (collected in 2001–2002), this paper suggests a shift in national development policies from solely promoting rural credit to supporting local savings activities. The household data (N = 260) are econometrically analyzed applying conjoint analysis (CA) methodology. The CA gave valuable insights into how to improve outreach of formal financial institutes (FFIs) by adapting the credit products to client preferences and revealed an un-attended demand for savings instruments. Due to the enormous credit outreach of the FFIs in Vietnam, it would be more efficient to launch a credit consolidation policy and to implement a reliable and sustainable deposit collection system at the village level. However, within national policymaking, a paradigm change must take place and the capability of rural households to save needs to be recognized by policy-makers.     

Rebalancing in China: A taxation approach

The rebalancing of the Chinese economy is analyzed through a heterogeneous taxation of various types of firms. Based on a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model, the paper applies tax reforms to raise consumption, reduce some firms' overinvestment (overcapacities) and maintain a high level of welfare.To rebalance consumption and investment, taxation may allow reallocating a part of the labor force to firms that are not overinvesting (via business taxes and social security contributions). Moreover, the correction of distortions in production factor costs (capital and labor) is necessary during certain reforms applied in the model; that is, on the one hand, higher credit costs for firms that face soft budget constraints (via financial transactions taxes) and, on the other hand, a catch-up of foreign firms' wages by domestic firms (via social security contributions).These tax reforms bring welfare benefits to households and stabilize the welfare reaction to productivity shocks. Another interesting result is that in this framework, the rebalancing of the domestic demand in China does not require the readjustment of the external financial position. Indeed, the aggregate savings rate remains high and the supply of domestic assets is reduced.Finally, another model proposes a heterogeneous taxation of consumption across home and foreign goods to enhance consumption.     

Savings behaviour in low-income countries

The empirical literature on savings in low-income countrieshas exploited some remarkable data sets to shed new light onsavings behaviour in the poor agricultural households that makeup the majority of the population in such countries. A numberof conclusions have emerged: (i) the degree of consumption smoothingover seasons within the year and across years, in response tovery large income fluctuations, is higher than was supposed;(ii) the lack of complete insurance and credit markets, however,is manifested in asset stocks and asset compositions among farmers,especially small farmers, that are inefficient; (iii) the combinationof low and volatile incomes is an important cause of inefficiencyand income inequality; (iv) the proximity of formal financialinstitutions increases financial savings and crowds out informalinsurance arrangements, thus, in principle, better facilitatingfinancial intermediation; and (iv) simple life-cycle modelsof savings do not appear to explain long-term savings in low-incomesettings.     

Cost-benefit analysis of energy efficiency in urban low-cost housing

This cost-benefit analysis study considered energy-efficiency measures in low-cost housing, primarily standard 30 m 2 Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses. The three packages of interventions that improve the thermal performance of the houses (ceilings, roof and wall insulation, windows and partitions) were found to be economically attractive both from a national and a household perspective. The net benefits from the whole package for a standard RDP home is about 10 per cent of the value of the housing subsidy provided by the government. The same interventions applied to informal housing appear more costly because the lifespan of shacks is taken to be five years. Row houses are particularly attractive, although their social acceptability requires further study. Compact fluorescent lamps and solar water heating are also attractive because of the energy savings they deliver. Apart from saving money, all these measures improve the quality of life of households by increasing comfort and decreasing indoor air pollution. Although the measures have a net social benefit, it does not mean that poor people can afford them. Energy-efficiency measures tend to have high capital costs, while the benefits are spread over many years. With their high discount rates, consumers are often not able to wait for future savings, nor do they have access to capital for investment. Based on our analysis, however, a capital subsidy of between R1 000 and R2 000 (not the full capital cost) is all that would be required to make these measures attractive to poor households across a range of regions and income groups. The no-cost measures of northern orientations: climatically correct window size and placement, as well as the appropriate wall and roof colour have a thermal running cost and environmental impact.     

Targeting the Poor in Mexico: An Evaluation of the Selection of Households into PROGRESA

In this paper, we conduct an evaluation of the targeting method used by Health Education and Nutrition Program (PROGRESA) of Mexico to identify beneficiary households. We address two key questions: (a) How well does PROGRESA's targeting perform; and (b) How does the program perform in terms of its impact on poverty alleviation relative to other feasible methods and transfer schemes. The first question is accomplished by comparing PROGRESA's method to an alternative selection method based on household consumption, which is our preferred measure of welfare. We employ the concepts of undercoverage and leakage and find that PROGRESA selection method is more effective in identifying the extremely poor localities or households but less so when it comes to distinguishing among localities or households in the middle of the scale. To address the second question, we compare the potential impact of PROGRESA on poverty alleviation against uniform transfers that involve no targeting at all, targeting based on consumption, and geographic targeting (i.e., targeting at the locality level rather than at the household level). We find that PROGRESA's method of targeting households outperforms uniform coverage and targeting at the locality level in terms of reducing the poverty gap and severity of poverty indices, even after taking into account the economic costs of targeting. But, the closeness of PROGRESA's performance to what could be achieved by geographic targeting alone raises some serious questions about the costs and benefits associated with the practice of household targeting within poor localities.