Top Incomes and National Savings

The relationship between income inequality and national savings is theoretically ambiguous, and past empirical studies have delivered mixed results. We revisit the question using a newly available source of data on inequality: the income share of the richest 10 percent and the richest 1 percent. Combining this with historical data on national savings rates, we are able to investigate the relationship for 11 developed countries over the period 1921–2002. We find no consistent relationship between lagged top income shares and current savings rates, and our standard errors are small enough that we are able to reject more than modest effects in either direction. We view this as suggesting that inequality at the top end of the distribution is not a major driver of national savings rates.

收入不平等与国民储蓄之间的理论关系尚不明确，既往实证研究的结论亦存在分歧。我们借助最新可得的不平等度数据源——即最富裕10%群体与1%群体的收入占比——重新探讨这一研究议题。结合国民储蓄率的历史数据，我们得以针对1921年至2002年间的11个发达国家开展二者关联的实证分析。研究发现，滞后一期的顶层收入占比与当期国民储蓄率之间不存在稳定关联；且我们得到的标准误足够小，足以拒绝任一方向上超过小幅程度的影响效应。据此我们认为，收入分配顶端的不平等并非国民储蓄率的核心驱动因素。