Testing the stability of the effect of the microeconomic determinants of the families’ saving rate

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to test the stability of the parameters of the projection models of the aggregate saving rate of the Brazilian families with the data of the Survey of Household Budgets (POF) of IBGE. The difference between the savings rates calculated with the POFs of 2008 and 2002 was decomposed according to the methodology proposed by Blinder-Oaxaca and Neuman-Oaxaca in the sum of components related to the variation of the explanatory variables and the variation of the parameters of the projection models. Using five definitions of the savings rate and four projection models, most of this difference is due to the variation of the parameters, remaining a secondary role for the effect of the changes in the sample means of the explanatory variables. This result compromises the use of models estimated with POF data for the projection of the aggregate savings rate of Brazilian families.