Precautionary Savings in the Netherlands: Effect of the Great Recession and European Crises

This paper focuses on the effect of the economic downturns in Europe during 2008-2014 and analyzes whether precautionary savings show deviating levels compared to pre-crisis and post-crisis periods. Precautionary savings in the Netherlands was 5% lower in the period after the crisis when the subjective earnings variance is used as proxy for income uncertainty. When the subjective unemployment risk variance is used as proxy, the pre-crisis period exhibits 10% lower precautionary savings. Risk aversion does not influence the level of one’s level of precautionary savings.