By Steve Roth
Wealth Economics
Matthew Klein and Joey Politano have been singularly responsible in their discussions of “excess saving” in the covid era — not least by always putting that term in “so-called” quotes. It’s saving in excess of what would have happened if pre-covid linear trends had continued (with the trend based on some chosen range of preceding quarters or years). It’s an estimate. Great.
They sometimes also discuss the accumulated stock of “excess savings,” which can only mean assets (in excess of what would have been accumulated sans covid). There is no national-accounts measure of any stock of “savings.” There’s just assets.1
Here’s a shot at untangling that, starting with the standard measure of household or “personal”
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