6.4 Intertemporal choices in financial capital markets  (Page 4/14)

One prominent example in which a higher rate of return leads to a lower savings rate occurs when firms save money because they have promised to pay workers a certain fixed level of pension benefits after retirement. When rates of return rise, those companies can save less money in the present in their pension fund and still have enough to pay the promised retirement benefits in the future.

This insight suggests some skepticism about political proposals to encourage higher savings by providing savers with a higher rate of return. For example, Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and 401(k) accounts are special savings accounts where the money going into the account is not taxed until it is taken out many years later, after retirement. The main difference between these accounts is that an IRA is usually set up by an individual, while a 401(k) needs to be set up through an employer. By not taxing savings in the present, the effect of an IRA or a 401(k) is to increase the return to saving in these accounts.

IRA and 401(k) accounts have attracted a large quantity of savings since they became common in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In fact, the amount of IRAs rose from $239 million in 1992 to $3.7 billion in 2005 to over $5 billion in 2012, as per the Investment Company Institute, a national association of U.S. investment companies. However, overall U.S. personal savings, as discussed earlier, actually dropped from low to lower in the late 1990s and into the 2000s. Evidently, the larger amounts in these retirement accounts are being offset, in the economy as a whole, either by less savings in other kinds of accounts, or by a larger amount of borrowing (that is, negative savings). The following Clear It Up further explores America's saving rates.

A rise in interest rates makes it easier for people to enjoy higher future consumption. But it also allows them to enjoy higher present consumption, if that is what these individuals desire. Again, a change in prices—in this case, in interest rates—leads to a range of possible outcomes.

The unifying power of the utility-maximizing budget set framework

The choices of households are determined by an interaction between prices, budget constraints, and personal preferences. The flexible and powerful terminology of utility-maximizing gives economists a vocabulary for bringing these elements together.