Business Studies, asked by dk2349923, 1 year ago

the trend in the changing interest rates and their effect on savings

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Answered by dqnish3720pd2puu
19
Interest rates determine the amount of interest payments that savers will receive on their deposits.

An increase in interest rates will make saving more attractive and should encourage saving.A cut in interest rates will reduce the rewards of saving and will tend to discourage saving.

However, in the real world, it is more complicated. The link between interest rates and saving is not clear because many factors affect saving.



In 2009, the household saving ratioincreased from 0.5% to over 8% – despite a cut in interest rates from 5 to 0.5%. This was because the impact of the recession encouraged saving. The fear of unemployment and recession was greater than the effect of lower interest rates

Income and substitution effect of higher interest rates.

If interest rates fall, the reward from saving falls. It becomes relatively more attractive to hold cash and/or spend. This is the substitution effect – with lower interest rates, consumers substitute saving for spending.However, if interest rates fall, savers see a decline in income because they receive lower income payments. A pensioner relying on interest payments from saving may feel he needs to save more to maintain their target income from savings.

Usually, the substitution effect dominates. Lower interest rates make saving less attractive. But, for some, the income effect may dominate, and people may respond to lower interest rates by saving more to maintain their standard of living.

Alternatively, a lower interest rate may encourage other forms of saving and investment. With very low bank rates, it has encouraged people to look for better yields in the stock market. This is one reason why the stock market did well in the great recession of 2008-2013 – savers have been buying shares to get a better rate of interest rate than they can in a bank and on bonds.

Base rates and bank rates

Usually, a cut in Central Bank base rates leads to an equivalent fall in bank rates. However, in the aftermath of the credit crunch, bank rates didn’t fall as much as base rates. In the UK, bank rates (e.g. Libor were higher). Therefore, the cut in base rates didn’t have as much impact. After the impact of the credit crunch diminished the UK saw a fall in Libor rates, and bank rates came closer to base rates.

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