Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Editor's summary
- Chapter 2 The corporate cost of capital in Japan and the United States: a comparison
- Chapter 3 The taxation of income from capital in Japan
- Chapter 4 Corporate tax burden and tax incentives in Japan
- Chapter 5 A closer look at saving rates in the United States and Japan
- Chapter 6 The Japanese current-account surplus and fiscal policy in Japan and the United States
- Chapter 7 Curing trade imbalance by international tax coordination
- Chapter 8 Picking losers: public policy toward declining industries in Japan
- Chapter 9 Corporate capital structure in the United States and Japan: financial intermediation and implications of financial deregulation
- Chapter 10 The Japanese bureaucracy in economic administration: a rational regulator or pluralist agent?
- Chapter 11 Japan's energy policy during the 1970s
- Chapter 12 Industry structure and government policies in the U.S. and Japanese integrated-circuit industries
Chapter 5 - A closer look at saving rates in the United States and Japan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Editor's summary
- Chapter 2 The corporate cost of capital in Japan and the United States: a comparison
- Chapter 3 The taxation of income from capital in Japan
- Chapter 4 Corporate tax burden and tax incentives in Japan
- Chapter 5 A closer look at saving rates in the United States and Japan
- Chapter 6 The Japanese current-account surplus and fiscal policy in Japan and the United States
- Chapter 7 Curing trade imbalance by international tax coordination
- Chapter 8 Picking losers: public policy toward declining industries in Japan
- Chapter 9 Corporate capital structure in the United States and Japan: financial intermediation and implications of financial deregulation
- Chapter 10 The Japanese bureaucracy in economic administration: a rational regulator or pluralist agent?
- Chapter 11 Japan's energy policy during the 1970s
- Chapter 12 Industry structure and government policies in the U.S. and Japanese integrated-circuit industries
Summary
Introduction
The saving behavior of a society reveals much about the nature of its economy and demography. It reflects values, institutions, and incentives, as well as the rate of economic growth and the age structure of the population. The saving rate is a fundamental reflection of the relative values placed on the future and the present by its citizens and political institutions.
Saving is important for two related, but conceptually different, reasons. First, saving provides funds to finance investment, which in turn increases productivity and the future standard of living. Second, saving provides the vehicle by which households shift their income over their lifetimes, for example, from peak earning years to years of retirement, and, perhaps to a lesser extent, between generations by bequests.
It is not surprising that much attention has been paid to the apparent tremendous difference in saving rates in the United States and Japan. The United States for many decades has had the lowest traditionally measured saving rate of any advanced economy in the world, and that saving rate has plummeted in recent years. Japan, on the other hand, has had the highest saving rate among the advanced economies, although it, too, probably has fallen somewhat. In 1983, the net national saving rate as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) was 2.2% in the United States compared with 15.7% for Japan. Most of the other advanced Western economies had net national saving rates ranging from 7% to 10%.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988
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