IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgif/363.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Savings rates and output variability in industrial countries

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph E. Gagnon
  • Garry J. Schinasi

Abstract

The economics literature offers competing hypotheses about the relationship between savings rates and output variability. This paper examines data for eight industrial countries to determine if there is a discernible pattern between savings rates and cyclical volatility of output. We find a striking coincidence of high gross savings rates and high output variability when real GDP gaps are estimated from a constant growth trend. But there is also strong evidence that this coincidence is an artifact. The major conclusion is that there is not a robust relationship between average gross savings rates and the variability of real GDP gaps (measured as deviations from trends) between 1960-Q1 and 1988-Q4. We also report a number of interesting features regarding estimated autoregressive processes for output in the major foreign industrial countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph E. Gagnon & Garry J. Schinasi, 1989. "Savings rates and output variability in industrial countries," International Finance Discussion Papers 363, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgif:363
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/1989/363/default.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/1989/363/ifdp363.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1987. "Are Output Fluctuations Transitory?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(4), pages 857-880.
    2. J. Bradford DeLong & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "The Changing Cyclical Variability of Economic Activity in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 679-734, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Danthine, Jean-Pierre & Donaldson, John B, 1981. "Stochastic Properties of Fast vs. Slow Growing Economies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1007-1033, June.
    4. Hayne E. Leland, 1968. "Saving and Uncertainty: The Precautionary Demand for Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(3), pages 465-473.
    5. Peter K. Clark, 1987. "The Cyclical Component of U. S. Economic Activity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(4), pages 797-814.
    6. Nelson, Charles R. & Plosser, Charles I., 1982. "Trends and random walks in macroeconmic time series : Some evidence and implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 139-162.
    7. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1, June.
    8. Clark, Peter K., 1989. "Trend reversion in real output and unemployment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 15-32, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Quah, Danny, 1989. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 655-673, September.
    2. J. Bradford De Long & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "On the Existence and Interpretation of the "Unit Root" in U.S. GNP," NBER Working Papers 2716, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Ángel Guillén & Gabriel Rodríguez, 2014. "Trend-cycle decomposition for Peruvian GDP: application of an alternative method," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-44, December.
    4. Perron, Pierre, 1992. "Racines unitaires en macroéconomie : le cas d’une variable," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 68(1), pages 325-356, mars et j.
    5. John Y. Campbell & Pierre Perron, 1991. "Pitfalls and Opportunities: What Macroeconomists Should Know about Unit Roots," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1991, Volume 6, pages 141-220, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Moolman, Elna, 2004. "A Markov switching regime model of the South African business cycle," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 631-646, July.
    7. Spencer D. Krane, 2006. "How professional forecasters view shocks to GDP," Working Paper Series WP-06-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    8. Zivot, Eric & Andrews, Donald W K, 2002. "Further Evidence on the Great Crash, the Oil-Price Shock, and the Unit-Root Hypothesis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 25-44, January.
    9. Louise Holm, 2016. "The Swedish business cycle, 1969-2013," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2015(2), pages 1-22.
    10. Robert J. Hodrick, 2020. "An Exploration of Trend-Cycle Decomposition Methodologies in Simulated Data," NBER Working Papers 26750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Nurgun Topalli & İbrahim Dogan, 2016. "The structure and sustainability of current account deficit: Turkish evidence from regime switching," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 570-589, June.
    12. Yoon & Jae Ho, 2004. "Has the G7 business cycle become more synchronized ?," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 782, Econometric Society.
    13. Guisinger, Amy Y. & Hernandez-Murillo, Ruben & Owyang, Michael T. & Sinclair, Tara M., 2018. "A state-level analysis of Okun's law," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 239-248.
    14. Marjorie A. Flavin, 1988. "The Excess Smoothness of Consumption: Identification and Interpretation," NBER Working Papers 2807, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Cayen, Jean-Philippe & van Norden, Simon, 2005. "The reliability of Canadian output-gap estimates," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 373-393, December.
    16. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1990. "Unit roots in real GNP: Do we know, and do we care?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 7-61, January.
    17. Perron, Pierre & Rodriguez, Gabriel, 2003. "GLS detrending, efficient unit root tests and structural change," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 1-27, July.
    18. Philip A. Shively, 2001. "Trend-stationary GNP: evidence from a new exact pointwise most powerful invariant unit root test," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(4), pages 537-551.
    19. Chang‐Jin Kim & Jeremy M. Piger & Richard Startz, 2007. "The Dynamic Relationship between Permanent and Transitory Components of U.S. Business Cycles," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(1), pages 187-204, February.
    20. Cribari-Neto, Francisco, 1996. "On time series econometrics," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 37-60.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Saving and investment; Business cycles;

    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:fedgif:363. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.