The Effect of Foreign Savings on Domestic Savings: Theory and Application

Abstract

The increase in the degree of openness of the economies has also increased resource transfers among countries. As seen in the example of the Feldstein-Horioka Hypothesis, this process allows countries to overcome the problem of insufficient existing resources with external resources. In this study, it is examined how foreign direct investments, portfolio investments and other investments (or short and long run external debt flows), which are called foreign savings, have an effect on domestic savings rates. The argument that these resources can reduce domestic savings is known as the Haavelmo Hypothesis. The sample countries of the research are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, India, Indonesia, Russia, Republic of South Africa, Turkey, which are called as Fragile Eight. After the variables were checked for stationarity, the Westerlund Durbin Hausman panel cointegration test was used to determine whether there was a cointegration relationship between them. After confirming the cointegration relationship, Panel Fully Modified Least Squares (FMOLS) and Continuously updated Fully Modified Least Squares (CUP-FMOLS) estimators were used for long-term parameter estimations. The results show that foreign savings have a negative effect on domestic savings. On the other hand, real income per capita and real interest rates are included in the model as control variables as determinants of the traditional saving function. It has been determined that the real interest rate and real income per capita have a positive effect on domestic savings, but the real interest rate has a relatively low coefficient in terms of effect.