DETERMINANTS OF THE SAVING RATE - AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON

Economists have extensively analyzed the interactions between economic -demographic factors and saving. Fertility rates and the dependency ra tio have received considerable attention, but the effect of life expec tancy improvements have not been analyzed explicitly. This paper provi des an added dimension to the existing literature by empirically exami ning the role of life expectancy as a determinant of saving. Recent da ta demonstrate that life expectancy is a statistically significant and quantitatively important factor affecting less developed countries' s aving performance. One must consider human capital investments when as sessing population growth's impact on saving. The analysis here is one of few that incorporate human capital in defining saving. The overall results are sensitive to level of development and regional diversity.