Precautionary Saving by Young Immigrants and Young Natives

Abstract

This paper uses data from the 1979 Youth Cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLSY79) to explore the wealth accumulation patterns of younger cohorts as well as immigrants' and natives' precautionary saving in response to income uncertainty. We use two measures of wealth and construct a time‐varying, conditional measure of income uncertainty, instead of relying on a constant, unconditional, summary measure of income uncertainty. We use a buffer‐stock model of savings, and find that immigrants accumulate less wealth than do natives. Additionally, young natives' wealth accumulation patterns appear more responsive than those of their immigrant counterparts to income uncertainty.