SAVINGS BEHAVIOR IN 17 OECD COUNTRIES

This article compares savings behavior in a sample of 17 OECD countries over 24 years. On the basis of an analysis of variance and of a life-cycle-hypothesis-based equation, we test the homogeneity of households' savings behavior. It appears that one cannot really speak of a homogeneous saving behavior across countries. This is a relevant finding in times of increasing economic and financial integration.     

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HOUSEHOLD WEALTH PATTERNS IN FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES

We find that household wealth is distributed more unequally in the U.S. in 1983 than France in 1986. The Gini coefficient is 0.77 for the U.S. and 0.71 for France. There are also significant differences in the composition of wealth. Owner-occupied housing accounted for half of total assets in France, and only 30 percent in the U.S., while corporate stock and financial securities amounted to 19 percent in the U.S. and 8 percent in France. The debt-equity ratio was 0.13 in France and 0.20 in the U.S. The age-wealth profile in the two countries had the characteristic hump-shape predicted by the life-cycle model, but the profile was much flatter in France and peaked for families aged 50–59 in France, compared to 60–69 in the US.     

Revisiting the Lemons Market

This article extends the standard competitive adverse selection model by allowing for qualitatively different information structures of agents on the informed side of the market. Using the stylized framework of the market for used cars, we examine the welfare properties of equilibria under the assumption that a fraction of the sellers remains uninformed about a parameter that is relevant for their own transaction. Whether market performance increases or decreases in the number of uninformed sellers is shown to depend on (1) the potential gains from trade in the market and (2) the average quality of the sellers' information structure.     

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Does Party Matter? An Historical Test Using Senate Tariff Votes in Three Institutional Settings

This article investigates the historical impact of party andconstituency preferences on tariff votes from the U.S. Senateover the period 1883–1930. We find that the estimatedeffect of party grows during periods in which legislative institutionsfavored strong parties. We conclude that party has a causaleffect on policy. If party serves solely as a proxy for unmeasuredcomponents of personal ideology or constituency preferences,then the estimated effect of party on policy outcomes shouldnot vary contemporaneously with changes in legislative institutions.But if party has an independent causal impact on policy outcomes,then changes in institutions favoring strong parties shouldlead to a greater effect of party on voting behavior, holdingconstituency preferences constant. Although our findings arelimited to votes over tariffs in the 19th and early 20th centuries,they suggest that further research into the mechanism by whichparty affects political decision making is important.     

Insurance market mechanisms and government interventions

The expansion of the State-as-insurer has played a major role in the long-term growth of the public sector, but we are probably reaching the turning point. Because of its manifold failures, the State-as-insurer is facing crisis all around the world, with exploding expenditures. This will probably induce a shift in the private–public frontier, which makes it much more important than in the past to regulate the insurance industry efficiently. Coming back to the failures of the State-as-insurer, we should underline the role played by this flawed hypothesis that sets market logic and private interest against public interest.