GVC Seminar Series No. 6

Marriage Squeeze, Marriage Age and the Household Savings Rate in China

聂光宇 (NIE Guangyu)

College of Business

Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Venue: Keyan 429 (科研楼配楼429) Time: Dec. 6^th 3:30 to 5:00pm

Abstract

Several influential works claim that single men's saving competition for marriage intensified by an increase in the sex ratio explains 60 percent of the rapid rise of China's aggregate household savings rate in recent years.  In this paper, we would like to see whether the marriage competition remains a first-order effect on saving when another margin of adjustment to sex ratio imbalance, men's postponement of marriage, is considered.  We construct a life-cycle model with a frictionless marriage market where a single man's rank is determined by his age and wealth relative to others.  We find by allowing more periods to save for marriage, the reaction of the aggregate savings rate is dampened by 50 percent.  In addition, the calibrated model generates a downward-sloping age-savings rate profile with younger households saving more than their middle-aged counterparts as observed in the data.

主讲人简介：聂光宇，副教授，博士，现就职于上海财经大学商学院。2015年毕业于美国乔治城大学，获得博士学位。主要研究方向包括宏观经济学和国际金融这两个领域的理论及实证研究，并且涉足计算经济学，以及家庭经济学等领域。聂博士目前已在国际顶尖经济学期刊American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 发表论文，并获国家自然科学基金青年学者，以及上海市浦江人才计划资助。