A study of saving in Greece

Malindretos, Paul M (1973) A study of saving in Greece. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with saving in a developing country, Greece, The statistical information used derives from the national accounts statistics and refers to the period 1949-1968, In addition, data on household budget surveys 1957/58 and 1968/69 which became lately available are used, though they are grouped by a single criterion in six income brackets so that their usefulness for statistical testing is limited. Use is also made in a qualitative fashion of data concerning the composition of saving by form as well as factors of saving decisions of social, demographic, and cultural nature. Attention is first given to the phenomenon of a relatively high rate of growth of the domestic saving and its ratio to income in Greece during the period 1949-1968, It is worth noting the outstanding performance of this country in terms of increase in the proportion of income saved, the actual contribution of foreign saving and the high share of the saving of the personal sector on the observed developments. The statistical testing uses, largely, given data limitations, income, the rate of growth of income arid the lagged consumption expenditure, as explanatory variables of personal saving, defined alternatively to exclude and to include expenditure on purchase of consumer durables. Personal saving is used as the dependent variable in time series 1949-1968, since saving rather than consumption expenditure is independently estimated in the case of Greece, as it happens in most less developed countries. Alternative testing is carried out. by the ordinary least squares method, the Wald's method of grouping averages to cope with measurement errors of saving and income, and the method of the two-stage, least-squares to remove bias because of serial correlation of the disturbance term. Use is also made of the method of the three-pass least squares to obtain consistent estimates when lagged consumption expenditure is incorporated as an independent variable. The comparison of the results of these methods is completed to some extent by the time pattern of the residuals. Further testing is carried out with all the variables taken as ratios to income, in the attempt to remove the possible presence of heteroscedasticity in the disturbance term. Use is also made of a system of reduced form equations of saving and income and the difference of the personal saving from the gross domestic investment expenditure as exogenous, and in effect instrumental variable, to face the problem of two ways causation between income and saving. The stability of the estimated saving function is investigated in terms of goodness of fit within and outside the period of observation, namely the year 1969 for which data have published lately. In addition, separate testing of the saving-income relationship is carried out for the period of inflation and reconstruction (1949-1955)and the consecutive normal period (1956-1968). The results of these two subperiods are compared in terms of testing the significance of the difference of the parameter estimates and in terms of size of the projection error and of the Theil's statistic U of forecasting performance of the projection to the other subperiod. Similarly, the problem of choice between the two concepts of saving is investigated in terms of goodness of fit within the period of observation by use of the standard error of estimate, and outside the period of observation by the forecasting performance. The influence of the restoration of relative price stability on saving is investigated in teams of time paths of consumer and factor prices, separate statistical testing of the saving-income relationship at current prices and possible effects on the real value of wealth. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Adviser: Alec Nove
• Keywords: Economics, Home economics
• Date of Award: 1973
• Depositing User: Enlighten Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:1973-73153
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 14 Jun 2019 08:56
• Last Modified: 14 Jun 2019 08:56
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/73153