This short essay surveys recent literature on the competitive saving motive and its broader economic implications. The competitive saving motive is defined as saving to improve one＇s status relative to other competit...This short essay surveys recent literature on the competitive saving motive and its broader economic implications. The competitive saving motive is defined as saving to improve one＇s status relative to other competitors for dating and marriage partners. Here are some of the key results of the recent literature： （i） cross-country evidence show that greater gender imbalances tend to correspond with higher savings rates; （ii） household-level evidence suggest that： （a） families with unmarried sons in rural regions with more skewed sex ratios tend to have higher savings rates, while savings rates of families with unmarried daughters appear uncorrelated with gender imbalances; and （b） savings rates of families in cities tend to rise with the local sex ratio; （iii） rising sex ratios contribute nearly half of the rise in housing prices in the People＇s Republic of China; and （iv） families with sons in regions of greater sex ratios are more likely to become entrepreneurs and take risky jobs to earn more income.展开更多
The Chinese economy is slowing down and is in the midst of a structural transJormattonfrom export-led and investment-led growth to domestic demand-led and consumption-ledgrowth. While there are widespread concerns amo...The Chinese economy is slowing down and is in the midst of a structural transJormattonfrom export-led and investment-led growth to domestic demand-led and consumption-ledgrowth. While there are widespread concerns among China＇s trading partners about theeffect of the slowdown in China＇s growth on their exports, China＇s structural changes arealso likely to have a significant impact：for example, China will import fewer machinesand more cosmetics. The central objective of the present paper is to empirically examinethe effect of China＇s structural transformation on the exports of East Asian economies,which have close trade linkages with China. We find that economies that have failed toincrease the share of consumption goods in their exports to China have suffered largerdeclines in their quantities of exports to China. In addition, economies that have sufferedlosses in their shares of China＇s parts and components imports have faced reductions intheir shares in China ＂s total imports.展开更多
文摘This short essay surveys recent literature on the competitive saving motive and its broader economic implications. The competitive saving motive is defined as saving to improve one＇s status relative to other competitors for dating and marriage partners. Here are some of the key results of the recent literature： （i） cross-country evidence show that greater gender imbalances tend to correspond with higher savings rates; （ii） household-level evidence suggest that： （a） families with unmarried sons in rural regions with more skewed sex ratios tend to have higher savings rates, while savings rates of families with unmarried daughters appear uncorrelated with gender imbalances; and （b） savings rates of families in cities tend to rise with the local sex ratio; （iii） rising sex ratios contribute nearly half of the rise in housing prices in the People＇s Republic of China; and （iv） families with sons in regions of greater sex ratios are more likely to become entrepreneurs and take risky jobs to earn more income.
文摘The Chinese economy is slowing down and is in the midst of a structural transJormattonfrom export-led and investment-led growth to domestic demand-led and consumption-ledgrowth. While there are widespread concerns among China＇s trading partners about theeffect of the slowdown in China＇s growth on their exports, China＇s structural changes arealso likely to have a significant impact：for example, China will import fewer machinesand more cosmetics. The central objective of the present paper is to empirically examinethe effect of China＇s structural transformation on the exports of East Asian economies,which have close trade linkages with China. We find that economies that have failed toincrease the share of consumption goods in their exports to China have suffered largerdeclines in their quantities of exports to China. In addition, economies that have sufferedlosses in their shares of China＇s parts and components imports have faced reductions intheir shares in China ＂s total imports.
