The saving decline: Macro-facts, micro-behavior

The macro-saving rate is decomposed into micro-components and a procedure developed to calculate household saving rates using income and expenditure shares, found with survey data for 1950, 1961, 1972 and 1980 to 2005. Low, middle and high income saving rates are calculated under alternative conditions: with income and expenditure shares alone, with changes in assets and liabilities added, with constant aggregate income, and for age-income groups. Problems of apparently excessive dissaving rates are considered. Overall, despite stable high income saving, collapsing middle income saving and increasing low income dissaving precipitated the decline in aggregate saving.