Personal and Corporate Saving in South Africa.

Low domestic saving rates in South Africa may perpetuate a low-growth trap. The decline in government saving, a major reason for the overall decline in saving, is now being reversed. However, personal saving rates have fallen since 1993, and corporate rates since 1995, and both may decline further w...

Volledige beschrijving

Bibliografische gegevens
Hoofdauteurs: Aron, J, Muellbauer, J
Formaat: Working paper
Taal:English
Gepubliceerd in: CEPR 2000
_version_ 1826283480996118528
author Aron, J
Muellbauer, J
author_facet Aron, J
Muellbauer, J
author_sort Aron, J
collection OXFORD
description Low domestic saving rates in South Africa may perpetuate a low-growth trap. The decline in government saving, a major reason for the overall decline in saving, is now being reversed. However, personal saving rates have fallen since 1993, and corporate rates since 1995, and both may decline further with lower real interest rates. It is important to understand both personal and corporate saving behaviour in order to formulate policies to raise the domestic saving rate in line with the needs of economic growth. This article summarizes our previous work on the household sector, emphasizing the role of financial liberalization, assets, and income expectations, and it explains sectoral links and policy implications. Further, it analyses South Africa's corporate saving rate in detail. Models are developed both for the share of profits in national income, including the roles of the terms of trade, tax effects, and the price to unit labour cost margin, and for the share of corporate saving in profits, which is found to depend on inflation, the real interest rate, dividend taxation, and financial liberalization. Corporate saving is remarkably underresearched, given its importance in many economies. This research thus puts the saving and growth concerns of Kaldor into a modern empirical context.
first_indexed 2024-03-07T00:59:32Z
format Working paper
id oxford-uuid:893c66eb-efe9-4d67-a0f8-22d7bd9b1fbd
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-07T00:59:32Z
publishDate 2000
publisher CEPR
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:893c66eb-efe9-4d67-a0f8-22d7bd9b1fbd2022-03-26T22:23:05ZPersonal and Corporate Saving in South Africa.Working paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:893c66eb-efe9-4d67-a0f8-22d7bd9b1fbdEnglishDepartment of Economics - ePrintsCEPR2000Aron, JMuellbauer, JLow domestic saving rates in South Africa may perpetuate a low-growth trap. The decline in government saving, a major reason for the overall decline in saving, is now being reversed. However, personal saving rates have fallen since 1993, and corporate rates since 1995, and both may decline further with lower real interest rates. It is important to understand both personal and corporate saving behaviour in order to formulate policies to raise the domestic saving rate in line with the needs of economic growth. This article summarizes our previous work on the household sector, emphasizing the role of financial liberalization, assets, and income expectations, and it explains sectoral links and policy implications. Further, it analyses South Africa's corporate saving rate in detail. Models are developed both for the share of profits in national income, including the roles of the terms of trade, tax effects, and the price to unit labour cost margin, and for the share of corporate saving in profits, which is found to depend on inflation, the real interest rate, dividend taxation, and financial liberalization. Corporate saving is remarkably underresearched, given its importance in many economies. This research thus puts the saving and growth concerns of Kaldor into a modern empirical context.
spellingShingle Aron, J
Muellbauer, J
Personal and Corporate Saving in South Africa.
title Personal and Corporate Saving in South Africa.
title_full Personal and Corporate Saving in South Africa.
title_fullStr Personal and Corporate Saving in South Africa.
title_full_unstemmed Personal and Corporate Saving in South Africa.
title_short Personal and Corporate Saving in South Africa.
title_sort personal and corporate saving in south africa
work_keys_str_mv AT aronj personalandcorporatesavinginsouthafrica
AT muellbauerj personalandcorporatesavinginsouthafrica