Culture and household saving

Arbeitspapier

This paper examines the role of culture in households' saving decisions. Exploiting the historical language borders within Switzerland, I isolate the effect of households' exposure to certain language groups from economic, institutional, demographic and geographic factors for a homogeneous and representative sample of households. The analysis uses the Swiss Household Panel which I complement with geographic and socio-economic data. I show that low- and middle-income households located in the German-speaking part are more than 11 percentage points more likely to save than similar households in the French-speaking part. In line with the existing literature, I show that these differences across language regions are consistent with different distributions of time preferences. By contrast, I do not find clear evidence for risk sharing during times of financial distress.

Object Details

• ISBN: 978-92-899-2791-8
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ECB Working Paper ; No. 2069

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis ; Macroeconomics: Consumption; Saving; Wealth ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡
• Subject: Household Finance ; Saving ; Culture ; Language ; Household Economics

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Guin, Benjamin
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): European Central Bank (ECB)
• (where): Frankfurt a. M.
• (when): 2017

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.2866/074530
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/175693
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET