A Cohort Analysis of Household Saving in Norway

Are there generational differences in saving behavior? On the basis of new micro data for household saving in Norway I find that differences between birth cohorts are small and statistically insignificant. In particular, cohort effects are small compared to the strong positive effect of aging on saving. Furthermore, within the framework of a life-cycle model, a generation that is characterized as being particularly patient or prudent will save more while young and less while old, a result that goes against the intuition that the current old save much because they belong to a generation with preferences for high saving. To ensure that the empirical findings are robust, a variety of econometric specifications and techniques are employed.

[1]  K. Salvanes,et al.  Job creation, heterogeneous workers and technical change : matched worker/plant data : evidence from Norway , 2001 .

[2]  Thad W. Mirer.  The Wealth-Age Relation among the Aged , 1979 .

[3]  G. H. Bjertnæs.  Optimal combinations of income tax and subsidies for education , 2001 .

[4]  J. Banks,et al.  Is There a Retirement-Savings Puzzle? , 1995 .

[5]  Asset Holdings and the Life Cycle , 1981 .

[6]  Torbjørn Hægeland.  Changing returns to education across cohorts : selection, school system or skills obsolescence? , 2001 .

[7]  Runa Nesbakken,et al.  How to quantify household electricity end-use consumption , 2003 .

[8]  J. Menken,et al.  Age, period, and cohort effects in demography: a review. , 1982, Population index.

[9]  J. F. Bjørnstad,et al.  Modeling Binary Panel Data with Nonresponse , 2001 .

[10]  Torstein Bye,et al.  On the Price and Volume Effects from Green Certificates in the Energy Market , 2003 .

[11]  J. Lind.  Tout est au mieux dans ce meilleur des ménages possibles The Pangloss critique of equivalence scales , 2001 .

[12]  M. Stephens.  EDF Statistics for Goodness of Fit and Some Comparisons , 1974 .

[13]  T. Skjerpen,et al.  Explaining the change in skill structure of labour demand in Norwegian manufacturing , 2000 .

[14]  Revealed Standards for Distributing Public Home-Care on Clients , 2000 .

[15]  James J. Heckman,et al.  Using Longitudinal Data to Estimate Age, Period and Cohort Effects in Earnings Equations , 1985 .

[16]  A Cohort Analysis of Saving Behavior by U.S. Households , 1998 .

[17]  M. Rege.  Networking Strategy: Cooperate Today in Order to Meet a Cooperator Tomorrow , 2000 .

[18]  Orazio Attanasio,et al.  A Cohort Analysis of Saving Behavior by U.S. Households , 1993 .

[19]  T. Thoresen,et al.  Reduced Tax Progressivity in Norway in the Nineties: The Effect from Tax Changes , 2004 .

[20]  R. Aaberge,et al.  Tax Reforms, Dividend Policy and Trends in Income Inequality Empirical Evidence based on Norwegian Data , 2000 .

[21]  E. Biørn,et al.  Individual Heterogeneity and Price Responses in Tobacco Consumption: A Two-Commodity Analysis of Unbalanced Panel Data , 2001 .

[22]  E. Biørn,et al.  Heterogeneity in Returns to Scale: A Random Coefficient Analysis with Unbalanced Panel Data , 2000 .

[23]  Roger Bjørnstad.  Learned Helplessness, Discouraged Workers, and Multiple Unemployment Equilibria in a Search Model , 2001 .

[24]  Ricardo J. Caballero.  Consumption puzzles and precautionary savings , 1990 .

[25]  R. Aaberge,et al.  'Birds of a Feather Flock Together': The Impact of Choice of Spouse on Family Labor Income Inequality , 2005 .

[26]  Bodil Merethe Larsen,et al.  Greenhouse gas emissions in Norway Do carbon taxes work , 2004 .

[27]  Erling Røed Larsen.  Estimating Latent Total Consumption in a Household , 2002 .

[28]  Øystein Døhl.  Energy flexibility and technological progress with multioutput production : application on Norwegian pulp and paper industries , 2002 .

[29]  Peter J. Rousseeuw,et al.  Robust regression and outlier detection , 1987 .

[30]  Morten Søberg.  Imperfect competition, sequential auctions, and emissions trading: An experimental evaluation , 2000 .

[31]  Andreas Benedictow.  An Econometric Analysis of Exports of Metals: Product Differentiation and Limited Output Capacity , 2000 .

[32]  L. Lau,et al.  An Analysis of Postwar U.S. Consumption and Saving: Part I -- the Model and Aggregation , 1988 .

[33]  Morten Søberg.  Price formation in monopolistic markets with endogenous diffusion of trading information: An experimental approach , 2002 .

[34]  K. Nyborg,et al.  The Evolution of Considerate Smoking Behavior , 2000 .

[35]  Multinomial Choice and Selectivity , 2000 .

[36]  Annegrete Bruvoll,et al.  On the Value of Households' Recycling Efforts , 2002 .

[37]  Morten Søberg.  The Duhem‐Quine thesis and experimental economics: A reinterpretation , 2005 .

[38]  O. Attanasio.  Personal Saving in the United States , 1994 .

[39]  Pål Boug,et al.  Expectations in Export Price Formation Tests using Cointegrated VAR Models , 2000 .

[40]  T. Kornstad.  Are Predicted Lifetime Consumption Profiles Robust with respect to Model Specifications , 2001 .

[41]  J. Dagsvik,et al.  Labor Market Modeling Recognizing Latent Job Attributes and Opportunity Constraints An Empirical Analysis of Labor Market Behavior of Eritrean Women , 2002 .

[42]  Studies in the Economics of Aging , 1996 .

[43]  P. Rousseeuw.  Least Median of Squares Regression , 1984 .

[44]  R. Aaberge.  Characterization and Measurement of Duration Dependence in Hazard Rate Models , 2002 .

[45]  E. Biørn,et al.  Micro Data On Capital Inputs: Attempts to Reconcile Stock and Flow Information , 2000 .

[46]  A. Raknerud,et al.  How and why do Firms differ , 2002 .

[47]  Yun Li.  Modeling the Choice of Working when the Set of Job Opportunities is Latent , 2000 .

[48]  T. Jappelli.  The Age-Wealth Profile and the Life-Cycle Hypothesis: A Cohort Analysis with a Time Series of Cross-Sections of Italian Households , 1999 .

[49]  Kjetil Telle,et al.  An experimental investigation of social norms , 2001 .

[50]  A. Bruvoll,et al.  Factoring the environmental Kuznets curve evidence from Norway , 2000 .

[51]  Exit dynamics with rational expectations , 2000 .

[52]  Erling Røed Larsen.  Searching for Basic Consumption Patterns Is the Engel Elasticity of Housing Unity , 2002 .

[53]  Knut Einar Rosendahl,et al.  Stabilization of CO2 concentrations: mitigation scenarios using the Petro model , 2000 .

[54]  A. Raknerud.  A State Space Approach for Estimating VAR Models for Panel Data with Latent Dynamic Components , 2001 .

[55]  Bente Halvorsen,et al.  Willingness to pay for dental fear treatment , 2004, The European Journal of Health Economics.

[56]  J. Poterba.  International Comparisons of Household Saving , 1994 .

[57]  Erling Røed Larsen.  Consumption Inequality in Norway in the 80s and 90s , 2002 .

[58]  Anders Rygh Swensen,et al.  More on testing exact rational expectations in cointegrated vector autoregressive models : restricted drift terms , 2003 .

[59]  I. Aslaksen,et al.  Child care in the welfare state : a critique of the Rosen model , 2000 .

[60]  Markov Chain generated profile likelihood inference under generalized proportional to size non-ignorable non-response , 2000 .

[61]  A. Kapteyn,et al.  Explaining the Wealth Holdings of Different Cohorts: Productivity Growth and Social Security , 1999 .

[62]  A. Shorrocks.  The Age-Wealth Relationship: A Cross-Section and Cohort Analysis , 1975 .

[63]  John K. Dagsvik,et al.  Analyzing labor supply behavior with latent job opportunity sets and institutional choice constraints , 2003 .

[64]  A Cohort Analysis of Saving Behavior by U.S. Households , 1993 .

[65]  Li‐Chun Zhang.  A method of weighting adjustment for survey data subject to nonignorable nonresponse , 2001 .

[66]  Brita Bye,et al.  The welfare effects of housing taxation in a distorted economy: a general equilibrium analysis , 2003 .

[67]  Axel Börsch-Supan,et al.  Life-cycle savings and public policy : a cross-national study of six countries , 2003 .

[68]  Bodil Merethe Larsen,et al.  Possibility for hedging from price increases in residential energy demand , 2003 .

[69]  Knut Einar Rosendahl,et al.  Cost-effective environmental policy: Implications of induced technological change , 2004 .

[70]  Bjart Holtsmark.  The Kyoto Protocol without USA and Australia - with the Russian Federation as a strategic permit seller , 2003 .

[71]  N. Glenn,et al.  Cohort Analysts' Futile Quest: Statistical Attempts to Separate Age, Period and Cohort Effects , 1976 .

[72]  Susheng Wang,et al.  Saving behavior and wealth accumulation in a pure lifecycle model with income uncertainty , 2001 .

[73]  Li‐Chun Zhang.  On dispersion preserving estimation of the mean of a binary variable from small areas , 2000 .

[74]  T. Fæhn,et al.  Trade Liberalisation and Effects on Pollutive Emissions and Waste A General Equilibrium Assessment for Norway , 2001 .

[75]  H. Bjørnland.  Fundamental determinants of the long run real exchange rate: The case of Norway , 2002 .

[76]  Martin Browning,et al.  Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts , 1996 .

[77]  M. Greaker.  Eco-labels, production related externalities and trade , 2002 .

[78]  Finn Roar Aune,et al.  Gas power generation in Norway: Good or bad for the climate? Revised version , 2000 .

[79]  Erling Røed Larsen.  Revealing Demand for Nature Experience Using Purchase Data of Equipment and Lodging , 2001 .

[80]  Karine Nyborg,et al.  An Economic Model of Moral Motivation , 2000 .

[81]  Mari Rege,et al.  Does Public Policy Crowd Out Private Contributions to Public Goods? , 2001 .

[82]  Terje Skjerpen,et al.  Parametric Aggregation of Random Coefficient Cobb-Douglas Production Functions: Evidence from Manufacturing Industries , 2003 .

[83]  Kjell Arne Brekke,et al.  An Economic Model of Moral Motivation , 2003 .

[84]  H. Hungnes,et al.  Estimating and Restricting Growth Rates and Cointegration Means With Applications to Consumption and Money Demand , 2001 .

[85]  Bente Halvorsen,et al.  A conflict of interests in electricity taxation? A micro econometric analysis of household behaviour , 2002 .

[86]  J. Roemer,et al.  Equality of Opportunity versus Equality of Outcome in Analysing Optimal Income Taxation Empirical Evidence based on Italian Data , 2001 .

[87]  Erling Holmøy,et al.  A Theory-Based Measure of the Output of the Education Sector , 2003 .

[88]  A. Raknerud.  Identification, Estimation and Testing in Panel Data Models with Attrition: The Role of the Missing at Random Assumption , 2002 .

[89]  J. Dagsvik.  Compensated variation in random utility models , 2001 .

[90]  Angus Deaton.  Panel data from time series of cross-sections , 1985 .

[91]  Morten Søberg.  Voting rules and endogenous trading institutions: An experimental study , 2002 .

[92]  Li‐Chun Zhang,et al.  The Effects of Using Administrative Registers in Economic Short Term Statistics: The Norwegian Labour Force Survey as a Case Study , 2001 .

[93]  Jan-Johan Larsson,et al.  Testing the multiproduct hypothesis on Norwegian aluminium industry plants , 2003 .

[94]  Alain Trannoy,et al.  To what Extent do Fiscal Regimes Equalize Opportunities for Income Acquisition Among citizens , 2003 .

[95]  E. Biørn,et al.  Prevalence and substitution effects in tobacco consumption: A discrete choice analysis of panel data , 2001 .

[96]  Morten Søberg,et al.  A laboratory stress-test of bid, double and offer auctions , 2002 .

[97]  Ricardo J. Caballero.  Earnings Uncertainty and Aggregate Wealth Accumulation , 1991 .

[98]  A. Swensen,et al.  Testing for long-run homogeneity in the Linear Almost Ideal Demand System An application on Norwegian quarterly data for non-durables , 2000 .

[99]  Roger Bjørnstad.  The Effect of Skill Mismatch on Wages in a small open Economy with Centralized Wage Setting: The Norwegian Case , 2000 .

[100]  F. Modigliani,et al.  The Age-Saving Profile and the Life-Cycle Hypothesis , 1998 .

[101]  Erling Holmøy,et al.  Aggregate Industry Behaviour in a Monopolistic Competition Model with Heterogeneous Firms , 2003 .

[102]  E. Biørn,et al.  Aggregation and Aggregation Biases in Production Functions: A Panel Data Analysis of Translog Models , 2002 .

[103]  PETER J. ROUSSEEUW,et al.  Computing LTS Regression for Large Data Sets , 2005, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery.

[104]  Households savings in the U.S.A , 2001 .