Accounting for China's Saving‐Investment Imbalance from 2002–2008

Abstract

This paper decomposes and analyzes China's saving-investment imbalance (equivalent to current account imbalance) from 2002–2008. We first use the Flow of Funds Accounts to calculate the saving and investment rates (propensity) of the household, corporate and government sectors and to evaluate their relative contribution to the aggregate saving-investment surplus. The results indicate that the increase of saving-investment surplus can be attributed to the steady increase of saving by the household and government sectors and the short-term downsizing of investment by the corporate and government sectors. We then use more disaggregate supplementary datasets to explore the factors behind the evolution of the saving and investment rates for the three sectors. The rise of the household saving rate mainly sources from the urban sector. The corporate saving rate experienced a steady increase because of the rise of profitability. Government macroeconomic policies have had a strong influence on the saving and investment patterns of the corporate and government sectors.