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Forced Saving in China*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2013

Richard S. Eckaus
Richard S. Eckaus*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Email: eckaus@mit.edu.
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Abstract

The explanation offered here for the high rates of saving in China is that much of the saving has been “forced” in two Benthamite senses. Involuntary saving, the first of Bentham's meanings, includes taxes which finance investment. These have made up more than half of the total savings in China in recent years. There is also forced saving in China in the form of Bentham's second sense, conduced saving, resulting from bank loans which have financed investment. While the existence of a savings glut has been suggested for China, a better characterization would be that it has had a high rate of investment.

Keywords

forced savingChina savinginvoluntary savingconduced savingsavings glut
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 217 , March 2014 , pp. 180 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2013 

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Footnotes

*

The author is indebted to Robert Solow and Peter Temin for their constructive comments.

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