Institutions, private savings and growth: a political economy analysis

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Marcos Fernandes Gonçalves da
• Data de Publicação: 1998
• Tipo de documento: Relatório
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do FGV (FGV Repositório Digital)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10438/3110
• topic: New institutional economics; Poupança privada; Crescimento econômico; Administração de empresas; Poupança; Desenvolvimento econômico

The objective of this paper is to show that there is a positive relationship between institutional stability, credibility and the rate of private saving. The most recent literature about disparities between saving rates uses an argument of political economy to explain how and why the institutional instability could affect the public decisions that determine the public saving. However, it doesn t suggest in the same way that such instability can affect the private saving negatively. This lack of the theory will be analysed here using the theoretical referential of the New Institutional Economics (NEI), where it is pointed out, in the processes of private decision of accumulation of assets, the role of the government enforcing (i) the stability of the market rules and (ii) the property rights. Firstly, I am going to discuss some theoretical aspects linking growth with politics and institutions. Secondly, it will be presented a multiple self model applied to savings decisions. The conclusion of the paper will suggest the necessity of empirical studies (econometric and comparative institutional cases) on the subject. The fundamental practical interest of the research, that will be the subject for further investigation, is to try to justify partly, the low levels of saving in Latin American using an institutional argument and to propose government s actions and reforms.