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Household Savings in Developing Economies: An Annotated Reading List

Expanding possibilities for saving in poor and low-income communities
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This reading list presents literature on household savings, and discusses how savings can be expanded in poor and low-income communities. It uses information from the following sources:

  • Economics literature that examines the motivation to save and analyzes demand;
  • Essays by and for practitioners, which focus mainly on supply;
  • Perspectives from historians, anthropologists, sociologists and unaffiliated development scholars, who argue that savings is a social activity.

Topics covered include:

  • Global evidence on saving;
  • Early advocacy of microsaving;
  • Motivations for people to save;
  • Saving constraints;
  • Close-up of the financial lives of poor people;
  • Lessons from behavioral economics;
  • Savings innovations and financial literacy;
  • Impact studies;
  • Building savings institutions and designing savings products;
  • Regulating savings.

About this Publication

By Morduch, J.
Published