我院封进、何立新老师合作的文章被“Journal of Comparative Economics”接受

我院封进、何立新老师合作的文章被“Journal of Comparative Economics”接受率先发表在期刊的网络在线版：http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2011.01.002

题目：Public Pension and Household Saving: Evidence from urban China

Jin FENG

School of Economics, Fudan University

Lixin HE

School of Economics, Fudan University

Hiroshi SATO

Graduate School of Economics, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract:We relate household savings to pension reform, to explain the high household savings rates in urban China from a new perspective. We use the exogenous – policy-induced – variation in pension wealth to estimate explicitly the impact of pension wealth on household savings, and obtain evidence of a significant offset effect of pension wealth on household savings. Although the size of the effect depends on the parameter values assumed, the finding that household savings are affected by pension reform is robust. Our estimates show that, under plausible scenarios, pension reform boosted household savings rates in 1999 by about 6 to 9 percentage points for cohorts aged 25–29 and by about 2 to 3 percentage points for cohorts aged 50–59. Our results also indicate that declining pension wealth reduces expenditure on education and health more than on other consumption items.

Key Words:Pensions, pension reform, household savings rate, China

JEL:E21, H55, P43