Ability to Save and the Motivations for Saving: Evidence from the UniCredit Customers’ Behaviour

Laura Marzorati, PGAM Economic Research

The paper examines UniCredit customers’ saving behaviour and motivations, by using the 2003 UniCredit Survey database.

I find modest evidence of asset decumulation at old age, which is consistent with other studies on Italy and other European countries. Moreover, there is apparently little relation between saving behaviour and the motivations that induce people to save: high savers do not necessarily correspond to those who, in the answers to the questionnaire, appear more motivated to save or who consider a particular motivation very important. Motivations are, on the other hand, strongly correlated to the age of the customer and the characteristics of the household.

These evidences seem to indicate that it may be useful to test further hypotheses, other than the intertemporal optimising model, which take into account the psychology of the individual and possible deviations from rationality.

A factor analysis is also performed, in order to address the heterogeneity of behaviour. Such analysis helps to categorize in a limited number of clusters the broad spectrum of customers. The 8 clusters generated, which group customers in terms of their family structure, human capital and status, are characterized by specific saving motivations and behaviours.

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