Causality among Savings, Income and Longevity: Empirical Evidence from Thailand
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Abstract
Savings is very important to Thailand’s economic opportunity in an ageing society since it is considered to be an intergenerational transfer to finance the older population’s consumption after retirement. This study examines the causal relationship among savings, income and longevity in Thailand during 1960 – 2012 by employing Vector Autoregression Analysis and the Granger Causality Test. In this study, savings is measured by two indicators, real gross domestic savings per capita and gross domestic savings rate, whereas income and longevity are measured by real gross domestic product per capita and life expectancy at birth, respectively. The findings reveal that there is a unidirectional causality running from income and longevity to savings per capita in Thailand while there is a unidirectional causality running from only longevity to the savings rate of Thai people. Additionally, there is evidence of a bi-directional causality between income and longevity. However, there seems to be no causality running from savings per capita to either income or longevity and no causality between the savings rate and income.
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References
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