IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedbne/y1991inovp3-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The influence of housing and durables on personal saving

Author

Listed:
  • Leah M. Cook
  • Richard W. Kopcke
  • Alicia H. Munnell

Abstract

The rate of national saving declined sharply in the 1980s. Some of the explanations for this puzzling performance have considered the influence of capital gains, a reduction in the need for precautionary saving, a decline in the need for retirement saving, the effect of slower income growth, and a host of other factors. ; This article explores the relationship between personal saving and the treatment of owner-occupied housing and consumer durable goods in the national income and product accounts. It examhaes the potential consequences of understating the returns on owner-occupied houses and overstating the consumption of services of durable goods. The article concludes that the greater value of homeowners investment in their residences after the 1970s and, to a lesser extent, rising outlays for consumer durable goods in the 1980s, depressed reported personal saving during the last decade, as the national accounts underestimated income and overestimated consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Leah M. Cook & Richard W. Kopcke & Alicia H. Munnell, 1991. "The influence of housing and durables on personal saving," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 3-16.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1991:i:nov:p:3-16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/neer/neer1991/neer691a.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barry Bosworth & Gary Burtless & John Sabelhaus, 1991. "The Decline in Saving: Evidence from Household Surveys," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(1), pages 183-256.
    2. Robert Eisner, 1991. "The Real Rate Of U.S. National Saving," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 37(1), pages 15-32, March.
    3. B. Douglas Bernheim & John B. Shoven, 1988. "Pension Funding and Saving," NBER Chapters, in: Pensions in the U.S. Economy, pages 85-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Robert E. Lipsey & Helen Stone Tice, 1989. "The Measurement of Saving, Investment, and Wealth," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number lips89-1.
    5. Lawrence Summers & Chris Carroll, 1987. "Why Is U.S. National Saving So Low?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 18(2), pages 607-642.
    6. Lessard, Donald R. & Modigliani, Franco., 1975. "Inflation and the housing market : problems and potential solutions," Working papers 813-75., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    7. Jack M. Guttentag & Morris Beck, 1970. "Appendices to "New Series on Home Mortgage Yields Since 1951"," NBER Chapters, in: New Series on Home Mortgage Yields Since 1951, pages 189-350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Jack M. Guttentag & Morris Beck, 1970. "The New Series," NBER Chapters, in: New Series on Home Mortgage Yields Since 1951, pages 17-29, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Nicole Ernsberger & Alicia H. Munnell, 1987. "Pension contributions and the stock market," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 3-14.
    10. Zvi Bodie & John B. Shoven & David A. Wise, 1988. "Introduction to "Pensions in the U.S. Economy"," NBER Chapters, in: Pensions in the U.S. Economy, pages 1-8, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Jack M. Guttentag & Morris Beck, 1970. "New Series on Home Mortgage Yields Since 1951," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gutt70-1.
    12. Joe Peek & James A. Wilcox, 1991. "A real, affordable mortgage," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jan, pages 51-66.
    13. Zvi Bodie & John B. Shoven & David A. Wise, 1988. "Pensions in the U.S. Economy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bodi88-1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. J. Steindl, 1998. "Capital gains in economic theory and national accounting," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 51(207), pages 435-449.
    2. J. Steindl, 1998. "Capital gains in economic theory and national accounting," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 51(207), pages 435-449.
    3. Leah M. Cook & Alicia H. Munnell, 1991. "Explaining the postwar pattern of personal saving," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 17-28.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leah M. Cook & Alicia H. Munnell, 1991. "Explaining the postwar pattern of personal saving," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Nov, pages 17-28.
    2. James M. Poterba & Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 1996. "The Effects of Special Saving Programs on Saving and Wealth," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Effects of Aging in the United States and Japan, pages 217-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. A Lusardi & J Skinner & S Venti, 2001. "Saving puzzles and saving policies in the United States," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 17(1), pages 95-115, Spring.
    4. C. Sirmans & Stanley Smith & G. Sirmans, 2015. "Determinants of Mortgage Interest Rates: Treasuries versus Swaps," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 34-51, January.
    5. Beverly, Sondra G. & Sherraden, Michael, 1999. "Institutional determinants of saving: implications for low-income households and public policy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 457-473.
    6. Bodie, Zvi, 1990. "Pensions as Retirement Income Insurance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 28-49, March.
    7. Michael J. Boskin, 1991. "Issues in the Measurement and Interpretation of Saving and Wealth," NBER Chapters, in: Fifty Years of Economic Measurement: The Jubilee of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, pages 159-184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. B. Douglas Bernheim & John Karl Scholz, 1993. "Private Saving and Public Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 7, pages 73-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Anthony J. Curley & Jack M. Guttentag, 1974. "The Yield on Insured Residential Mortgages," NBER Chapters, in: Explorations in Economic Research, Volume 1, Number 1, pages 114-161, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Michael J. Boskin, 1988. "Issues in the Measurement and Interpretation of Saving and Wealth," NBER Working Papers 2633, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Ajit Zacharias & Thomas N. Masterson & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2018. "The Sources and Methods Used in the Creation of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being for the United States, 1959-2013," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_912, Levy Economics Institute.
    12. Annamaria Lusardi & Jonathan Skinner & Steven Venti, 2003. "Pension Accounting & Personal Saving," Just the Facts jtf8, Center for Retirement Research.
    13. Bosworth, Barry & Collins, Susan M., 2010. "Rebalancing the US Economy in a Postcrisis World," ADBI Working Papers 236, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    14. Heim, Bradley T. & Lurie, Ithai Z., 2012. "The Effect of Recent Tax Changes on Tax-Preferred Saving Behavior," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 65(2), pages 283-311, June.
    15. Choi, Horag & Mark, Nelson C. & Sul, Donggyu, 2008. "Endogenous discounting, the world saving glut and the U.S. current account," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 30-53, May.
    16. David A. Wise & Steven F. Venti, 1993. "The Wealth of Cohorts: Retirement Saving and the Changing Assets of Older Americans," NBER Working Papers 4600, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 1990. "Have IRAs Increased U. S. Saving?: Evidence from Consumer Expenditure Surveys," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 661-698.
    18. Leslie E. Papke & Mitchell A. Petersen & James M. Poterba, 1996. "Do 401(k) Plans Replace Other Employer-Provided Pensions?," NBER Chapters, in: Advances in the Economics of Aging, pages 219-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Bradford, D.F., 1989. "Market Value Us. Financial Accounting Measures Of National Saving," Papers 34, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Discussion Paper.
    20. Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & John Sabelhaus, 1996. "Understanding the Postwar Decline in U.S. Saving: A Cohort Analysis," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 315-407.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Saving and investment;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1991:i:nov:p:3-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Spozio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbbous.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.