Is there a savings glut due to pension savings?

For example, changes in old-age ratios in OECD countries are not accompanied by changing household savings rates, as proponents of the thesis claim.

The objection to this observation is that public pension schemes and employee pension plans do not include capital saved to cover pension entitlements in savings rates and therefore need to be added. However, this is not correct.

This study is available in German only.

¹ Mayer und Schnabl (2019) finden für die großen G7-Länder auch keine empirischen Belege dafür, dass die Grenzproduktivität des Kapitals aufgrund von Überinvestitionen gefallen wäre, wie einige Vertreter der Sparschwemmen-Hypothese vermuten.

² Im Jahr 2015 betrug der Gegenwartswert der Ansprüche aus der deutschen gesetzlichen Sozialversicherung und der Beamtenversorgung – und damit die Verpflichtungen des Staats – 266% des Bruttoinlandsprodukts (Haug 2018, S. 88). Entsprechend hoch sind die diskontierten Forderungen aus künftigen Rentenbeiträgen.

³ Wären die betrieblichen Versorgungsansprüche aufgrund eines Zinsanstieges um den gleichen Betrag gefallen, so hätte sich die Sparquote ceteris paribus von 9,9 % im Jahr 2017 auf 4,9 % im Jahr 2018 mehr als halbiert.

⁴ Der relevante Zeitraum für den HGB-Rechnungszins ist im Jahr 2016 von sieben auf zehn Jahre ausgeweitet worden. Die entsprechenden zehnjährigen Durchschnittszinssätze werden von der Deutschen Bundesbank erst für Zeiträume beginnend ab dem Jahr 2011 bekanntgegeben.

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