We argue that the U.S. personal saving rate’s long stability (from the 1960s through the early 1980s), subsequent steady decline (1980s - 2007), and recent substantial increase (2008 - 2011) can all be interpreted using a parsimonious ‘buffer stock’ model of optimal consumption in the presence of labor income uncertainty and credit constraints. Saving in the model is affected by the gap between ‘target’ and actual wealth, with the target wealth determined by credit conditions and uncertainty. An estimated structural version of the model suggests that increased credit availability accounts for most of the saving rate’s long-term decline, while fluctuations in net wealth and uncertainty capture the bulk of the business-cycle variation.

Our estimates indicate that 24% of net wealth is attributed to precautionary savings in Australia. Moreover, across the income distribution, we find that low-income households have the highest fraction of their wealth accumulation explained by precautionary motives. These results for Australia are at odds with the estimates of precautionary wealth in the United States where related studies find that low-income households hold low levels of precautionary savings. Using a simple theoretical model, we show that differences in means-tested social insurance programs can rationalize these large differences in our empirical results.

Studies the trend in household income uncertainty using a novel approach that measures income uncertainty as the variance of forecast errors at each future horizon separately without imposing parametric restrictions on the underlying income shocks. Household income uncertainty has risen significantly and persistently since the early 1970s. Their measure of near-future uncertainty in total family non-capital income rose 40% between 1971 and 2002. This rising uncertainty is likely due to the increase in variances of both persistent and transitory income shocks. The increase was most pronounced among single-earner households and high-income households. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand report.