Introduction to Savings Behaviours

Abstract

It has been widely believed that the rate of household savings in Japan and thus the rate of macro-level savings are quite high by international standards. Not only Japanese economists but also non-Japanese economists have investigated the reasons why the savings rate is so high. This chapter does not intend to enter into the detailed argument of the reasons, but to present them briefly as an introduction to the subsequent chapters on savings. Various hypotheses which explain the reasons for the high savings rate are presented here without showing any discussion. Some of them were argued very briefly in the previous chapter, and many of them will be discussed separately in much more detail in subsequent chapters.