IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea08/37089.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Racial Saving Gap Enigma: Unraveling the Role of Institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Belton, Willie
  • Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth

Abstract

It has been well documented in the literature that ethnicity matters significantly in the determination of savings. In particular, African-American savings lag far behind that of other ethnic groups. Similarly, the literature also provides evidence of the long-lived nature of institutions and the link between institutions and culture. In this paper, we provide an explanation for the savings gap that still exists between African-Americans and White Americans even after accounting for appropriate factors that can lead to savings differentials. We initially provide evidence that the savings gap exists and persist after including several control variables in a regression analysis. We then provide evidence that the persistent gap can not be attributed solely to racial discrimination but can be explained by the response of culture to institutional scaffolding erected many years earlier. Using a novel within race decomposition we provide evidence that past institutions transmitted through culture can help to explain this persistent saving disparity.

Suggested Citation

  • Belton, Willie & Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth, 2008. "The Racial Saving Gap Enigma: Unraveling the Role of Institutions," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 37089, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea08:37089
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.37089
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/37089/files/savingspaperAAEA.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.37089?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Smith & Michael Ward, 1980. "Asset Accumulation And Family Size," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 17(3), pages 243-260, August.
    2. Joseph G. Altonji & Ulrich Doraszelski, 2005. "The Role of Permanent Income and Demographics in Black/White Differences in Wealth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    3. Charles Yuji Horioka & Junmin Wan, 2007. "The Determinants of Household Saving in China: A Dynamic Panel Analysis of Provincial Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(8), pages 2077-2096, December.
    4. Lisa A. Keister, 2000. "Family Structure, Race, and Wealth Ownership: A Longitudinal Exploration of Wealth Accumulation Processes," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_304, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. Francine D. Blau & John W. Graham, 1990. "Black-White Differences in Wealth and Asset Composition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(2), pages 321-339.
    6. Frank P. Stafford & Ngina S. Chiteji, 1999. "Portfolio Choices of Parents and Their Children as Young Adults: Asset Accumulation by African-American Families," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 377-380, May.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    8. Smith, J.P., 1996. "Racial and Ethnic Differences in Wealth in the Health and Retirement Study," Papers 96-12, RAND - Reprint Series.
    9. James P. Smith, 1995. "Racial and Ethnic Differences in Wealth in the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30, pages 158-183.
    10. Sanket Mohapatra & Dilip Ratha & K. M. Vijayalakshmi & Zhimei Xu, 2007. "Remittance Trends 2007," World Bank Publications - Reports 11024, The World Bank Group.
    11. Kerwin Kofi Charles & Erik Hurst & Nikolai Roussanov, 2009. "Conspicuous Consumption and Race," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 425-467.
    12. Charles Yuji Horioka & Junmin Wan, 2006. "The Determinants of Household Saving in China: A Dynamic Panel Analysis of Provincial Data," ISER Discussion Paper 0676r, Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka, revised Sep 2007.
    13. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    14. Lisa A. Keister, 2000. "Family Structure, Race, and Wealth Ownership: A Longitudinal Exploration of Wealth Accumulation Processes," Macroeconomics 0004051, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. 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.
    16. Aart Kraay, 2000. "Household Saving in China," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 14(3), pages 545-570, September.
    17. Kerwin Kofi Charles & Erik Hurst, 2002. "The Transition To Home Ownership And The Black-White Wealth Gap," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 281-297, May.
    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. Qingyuan Du & Shang-Jin Wei, 2010. "A Sexually Unbalanced Model of Current Account Imbalances," NBER Working Papers 16000, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Du, Qingyuan & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2013. "A theory of the competitive saving motive," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 275-289.
    3. Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth & Belton, Willie, 2009. "Coming to America: Does Immigrant's Home Country Economic Status Impact the Probability of Self-Employment in the U.S.?," IZA Discussion Papers 4178, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth & Belton, Willie, 2008. "The Role of Information and Institutions in Understanding the Black-White Gap in Self-Employment," IZA Discussion Papers 3761, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth & Belton, Willie, 2010. "Black-White Gap in Self-Employment in the U.S.: Do Cohort and Within Race Differences Exist?," IZA Discussion Papers 5071, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Ruth Oyelere & Willie Belton, 2013. "Black–White gap in self-employment. Does intra-race heterogeneity exist?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 25-39, June.
    7. Du, Qingyuan & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2016. "A Darwinian perspective on “exchange rate undervaluation”," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 111-138.
    8. Mundra, Kusum & Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth, 2013. "Determinants of Immigrant Homeownership: Examining their Changing Role during the Great Recession and Beyond," IZA Discussion Papers 7468, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand, 2006. "The Wealth And Asset Holdings Of U.S.‐Born And Foreign‐Born Households: Evidence From Sipp Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 52(1), pages 17-42, March.
    2. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand, 2006. "The Wealth of Mexican Americans," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    3. Joseph G. Altonji & Ulrich Doraszelski, 2005. "The Role of Permanent Income and Demographics in Black/White Differences in Wealth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    4. Hero Ashman & Seth Neumuller, 2020. "Can Income Differences Explain the Racial Wealth Gap: A Quantitative Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 35, pages 220-239, January.
    5. Rendon, Silvio, 2007. "Does Wealth Explain BlackWhite Differences in Early Employment Careers?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 484-500, October.
    6. Joseph Altonji & Ulrich Doraszelski & Lewis M. Segal, 2000. "Black/white differences in wealth," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 24(Q I), pages 38-50.
    7. Thomas Gries & Ha van Dung, 2014. "Household Savings and Productive Capital Formation in Rural Vietnam: Insurance vs. Social Network," Working Papers CIE 81, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    8. Mariela Dal Borgo, 2019. "Ethnic and racial disparities in saving behavior," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(2), pages 253-283, June.
    9. Una Okonkwo Osili & Anna L. Paulson, 2006. "What can we learn about financial access from U.S. immigrants?," Working Paper Series WP-06-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    10. Yi Wen, 2011. "Making sense of China’s astronomical foreign reserves," Working Papers 2011-018, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    11. Klevmarken, A. & Lupton, J. & Stafford, F., 2000. "Wealth Dynamics in the 1980' and 1990's: Sweden and the U.S," Papers 2000-18, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
    12. Chamon, Marcos & Liu, Kai & Prasad, Eswar, 2013. "Income uncertainty and household savings in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 164-177.
    13. Dennis Tao Yang, 2012. "Aggregate Savings and External Imbalances in China," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 125-146, Fall.
    14. Gu, Xinhua & Tam, Pui Sun & Li, Guoqiang & Zhao, Qingbin, 2020. "An alternative explanation for high saving in China: Rising inequality," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1082-1094.
    15. Yin, Jingwen & Yuji Horioka, Charles, 2022. "Is the Age Structure of the Population One of the Determinants of the Household Saving Rate in China? A Spatial Panel Analysis of Provincial Data," AGI Working Paper Series 2022-05, Asian Growth Research Institute.
    16. GOLLEY, Jane & WEI, Zheng, 2015. "Population dynamics and economic growth in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 15-32.
    17. Dennis Tao Yang & Junsen Zhang & Shaojie Zhou, 2012. "Why Are Saving Rates So High in China?," NBER Chapters, in: Capitalizing China, pages 249-278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Annamaria Lusardi, 2000. "Explaining Why So Many Households Do Not Save," Working Papers 0001, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    19. Liu, Yanjun & Xiao, Hao & Zhu, Shujin, 2013. "Population Aging, Saving Rate and Long-term Economic Growth in China: Based on Dynamic CGE Model," Conference papers 332313, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    20. Gu, Xinhua & Tam, Pui Sun, 2013. "The saving–growth–inequality triangle in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 850-857.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Political Economy;

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ags:aaea08:37089. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.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.