Essays on the Macroeconomics of Saving

This thesis consists of three essays on the issue of macroeconomics of saving and its related areas.;The first essay is on saving and intertemporal substitution. In this essay we study the possibility to generate different saving dynamics with a standard neoclassical growth framework, when allowing non-unitary factor elasticity of substitution (EOS) and non-constant intertemporal elasticity of substitution (IES). When employing both generalized utility and production function, our results can encompass all the varieties of saving patterns that are possible in the evidence, including monotonically increasing, decreasing, hump-shaped and U-shaped. We use the model with Stone-Geary utility and CES production function as a special case for illustration. Following the phase diagram approach, we have derived the necessary and sufficient conditions for the different saving dynamics. Our numerical tests can also support the theoretical findings. We have also studied the saving dynamics in another workhorse model, the OLG model with continuous time as an extension. When relaxing the assumptions in preference and technology, we also find rich transitional dynamics of saving that are close to those in the neoclassical model.;The second essay is an empirical study on the variable IES assumption. In this essay we study the cross-country difference with the intertemporal elasticity of substitution, as well as its possible changes in one country's growth transition. We test different forms of the Euler equation model, especially one with an increasing IES restriction as is implied by the Stone-Geary style utility function. Our estimation with the east and south Asia country panel data can not reject the increasing IES assumption. A time-series study on two typical Asian Country, Korea and Japan's IES also indicates an increasing IES in their growth path. These results provide some support to the theoretical findings in Chapter I, and are consistent with the countries' saving patterns in history.;The third essay investigates China's high saving rate and current account imbalance problem quantitatively in a two-country open economy macroeconomic model when using asymmetric production technologies. We estimate the production parameters for China and the OECD countries, and find that China's elasticity of substitution (EOS) and capital share in production are both higher than those of developed countries. While the estimated EOS of China is above one, the capital share of it is above 0.5 and close to the literature value. In the quantitative study, when there is high TFP growth rate, the model with estimated EOS and capital share can generate much higher saving and current account balance for China, which match the real series very well especially before the year 2000, while the standard model with symmetric production parameters predicts large current account deficits and is contrary to the evidence.