Nevertheless, a 64% marginal saving rate does seem to support our chronic saving spree thesis.
Those actions resulted in the spikes in the saving rate shown in Chart 5.
The household saving rate dropped from 26 percent to 12 percent over the last five years.
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The household saving rate dropped from 26% to 12% over the last five years.
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China's saving rate, at 51% of GDP, is even higher than its investment rate.
So, despite India's high saving rate, capital available for investment in infrastructure is scant.
As a result, the household saving rate is now a negative 2% of disposable income.
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Others noted that the slowdown in the housing market might raise the household saving rate, undermining demand.
The combined saving rate of households and firms in America has already fallen to its lowest level ever.
America's saving rate has plunged, and consumer spending surged as homeowners borrowed with gusto against their capital gains.
America has grown steadily despite a measly saving rate, whereas Japan's bountiful saving has often been badly invested.
This spending has driven our national saving rate from 14 percent in the fifties to 1 percent now.
If share prices plunge, a low personal saving rate provides less of a cushion than a high one.
On a microeconomic level, China has a very high household saving rate, accounting for about 25 percent of its GDP.
Some numbers, such as the low saving rate and the colossal current-account deficit, suggest that the economy's course is unsustainable.
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After falling steeply in the late 1990s, China's household saving rate has been more or less steady since 2000 (see chart 9).
The personal saving rate in July dipped to a negative 0.9%, the 16th month in a row the rate has been negative.
Workers are defaulted into a commitment to increase their saving rate later, thus putting off the pain of having less cash to spend.
The saving rate, some 2.3% in 2007, may have risen as high as 11.5%, says Alan Barrett at ESRI, a Dublin-based research institute.
America's total saving rate fell in the third quarter of last year to only 10% of GDP, barely half its level a decade ago.
Britain's saving rate fell more modestly, so when prices flattened, the impact on consumer spending was smaller than it is likely to be in America.
This should be the year that Washington stops using the "personal saving rate"--the monthly feel-bad number giving the world the false impression that America is broke.
Another impediment to rapid growth is India's saving rate of 24%, only half China's rate and too low to finance the required investment in industry and infrastructure.
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But although households account for a large part of China's exalted national saving rate, they were not responsible for the sharp rise in national thrift since 2000.
When the economy was strong, most consumers were cautious about saving less and spending more (the euro-area saving rate has barely budged in the past three years).
Indeed, one of the strongest arguments for a shift to individual provision is that it should raise the personal saving rate, which would help to foster economic growth.
Instead, his legacy will linger in the shape of the biggest economic imbalances in American history: a negative household saving rate and a record current-account deficit (see chart 1).
South Korea is the big exception: households have as much debt relative to their income as Americans and their saving rate has fallen over the past decade from 18% of disposable income to only 4%.
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