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Developing Asia has grown faster than other parts of the world for decades. However, population aging is expected to pose significant headwinds to the region’s future economic growth. We update and enhance the analysis of Park and Shin (2012) to project the impact of population aging on developing Asia’s growth between 2021 and 2050. Our projections indicate that a demographic transition will have a substantial negative effect on the region’s future growth, but the effect varies across economies. Older economies will suffer a demographic tax, whereas younger economies will continue to enjoy a positive but declining demographic dividend.

This paper, through simulating an open economy model of China, investigates whether the current rate of saving in China is excessive. The model incorporates the major factors that influence optimal saving, namely demographic change, the catch-up of total factor productivity in China to the level of high-income OECD countries, and an endogenous world rate of interest. The paper finds that the rate of time preference that would imply the current rate of saving is optimal is very low; in fact, it is negative. Thus, to justify China's current rate of saving, the social planner would have to put a higher weight on the economic welfare of future generations relative to the current generation, indeed up to 19 times the weight. This suggests that the current rate of saving in China is excessive.

This paper examines the dynamics of saving–investment (S–I) relationship in a group of 10 newly industrialized countries (NICs) over the period from 1970 to 2010 using a panel error correction model. By applying the Pedroni and Westerlund cointegration tests, we find that the saving and investment are cointegrated. We apply the fully modified OLS and dynamic OLS to a set of panel error correction models to estimate the short-and long-run relationship between S–I rates and interest rate differentials. We find that the degree of capital mobility is higher when the NICs are more open to their capital control policies after 1980s.

In this paper, I find (1) that Japan showed massive and persistent current account surpluses from at least 1981 until at least 2011, (2) that Professor Ronald McKinnon was correct, at least in the case of Japan, and that these large and persistent current account surpluses were due primarily to Japan’s large and persistent IS imbalances (the excess of saving over investment), (3) that the specific causes of the IS imbalances have changed dramatically over time, and (4) that future trends in Japan’s IS imbalances (current account surpluses) are difficult to project but that they will probably not change dramatically in either direction in the foreseeable future.

In this paper, we attempt to shed light on whether Japanese households are rational or if their behavior is influenced by culture and social norms by examining their saving and bequest behavior. To summarize our main findings, we find that Japan’s household saving rate showed great volatility, was often low and even negative and was high only during the 25-year period from around 1960 until the mid-1980s (if we exclude the war years) and that we can explain the high level of, and trends over time in, Japan’s household saving rate via various socioeconomic and policy variables. This seems to suggest that the Japanese are not a saving-loving people and that their saving behavior is not governed by culture and social norms. Moreover, the bequest behavior of the Japanese suggests that they are less altruistic toward their children and less reliant on their children than other peoples, suggesting that the alleged social norm of strong family ties in Japan is largely a myth, and that the Japanese do not appear to be appreciably more concerned about the continuation of the family line or the family business than other peoples, suggesting that the influence of the “ie” (family) system is apparently not so pervasive either. However, we argue that these findings do not necessarily mean that culture and social norms do not matter.

This study was concerned with the correlates of attitudes to, and habits surrounding money, particularly budgeting. It involved a secondary analysis of a representative (UK) sample of adults who completed a questionnaire that enquired into such things as their saving and spending habits, and investments. We drew on data from 1767 participants and looked specifically at demographic correlates (age, gender, income), as well as money attitudes, spending habits and their self-rated financial literacy. Our central interest was how specific beliefs about money, impulsive spending, and financial literacy are related to regular saving, spending and investment. Through correlation and regression analyses, we were able to show that household income was a major correlate of these behaviors, as were participant gender and age. We paid particular attention to the money attitude variable which suggested that those who saw money primarily as a source of security tended to be savers rather than investors and had more disposable cash. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed, including implications for detecting and advising those with money-related issues.