The Anticipation of Expectations – Financial Institutions and the observation of saving behaviour in West Germany and the United States of America

储蓄研究经常不得不处理不同的“储蓄难题”。当观察到的私人家庭储蓄行为没有以预期的方式对宏观经济数据框架的变化作出反应或与既定的经济储蓄理论相矛盾时，使用这一术语。比较美国和德国家庭在上世纪70年代和80年代的储蓄行为是这些谜团之一：在类似的宏观经济条件下，美国家庭在上世纪70年代减少了储蓄，转而购买高风险的金融市场产品。相比之下，德国家庭的储蓄水平相对较高，并保持着经典的存折。该项目基于这样的假设，即两国家庭的不同期望最终是储蓄行为差异的原因。在这两个国家，20世纪70年代代表了经济史上的“基础学习”阶段（Siegenthaler），在这一阶段，家庭重新制定了形成经济预期的“规则系统”。这一过程是在与主要金融机构密切互动的情况下进行的，这些机构反过来观察预期的变化，以便能够对其产品组合作出相应的反应。虽然由于缺乏微观数据，最终无法直接研究家庭的预期及其对储蓄形成的影响，但推动预期形成的相互作用过程在金融机构的档案中有很好的记录。本项目利用这一情况，根据金融机构的观察，对滞胀时期储蓄者预期的形成及其变化进行调查。该项目是基于美国和德国在20世纪70年代和80年代的两个比较案例研究。第一个例子涉及储蓄簿的不同命运。第二个案例研究比较了国家补贴储蓄合同中投资形式的选择，其中一些由雇主提供服务。该项目重建了两国有时非常复杂的监管框架，分析了储蓄行为，特别是投资组合决策的变化，最后侧重于客户与金融机构之间的沟通过程，这一过程记录在大量私人、国家和协会档案中。

Savings research often had to deal with different "saving puzzles". This term is used when observed saving behaviour of private households either does not react in the expected manner to changes in macroeconomic data framework or contradicts established economic saving theories. Comparing the savings behaviour of US and German households in the 1970s and 1980s is one of these mysteries: under similar macroeconomic conditions, US households reduced their savings during the 1970s and switched to high-risk financial market products. By contrast, German households saved at a comparatively high level and maintained the classic pass book. The project is based on the assumption that very different expectations of households in the two countries are ultimately responsible for the differences in savings behaviour. In both countries, the 1970s represented a phase of "fundamental learning" (Siegenthaler) in economic history, in which households reformulated their “rule systems” for the formation of economic expectations. This process took place in close interaction with the major financial institutions, who in turn observed the changes in expectations in order to be able to react accordingly with their product portfolio. While the expectations of households and their effect on savings formation cannot ultimately be researched directly due to the lack of micro-data, the interaction process that drove the formation of expectations is well documented in the archives of financial institutions. The project takes advantage of this situation to investigate the formation of savers' expectations and their change during the stagflation period on the basis of observations by financial institutions. The project is based on two comparative case studies in the USA and Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. The first example deals with the different fate of the savings book. The second case study compares the choice of investment forms within state-subsidised savings contracts, some of which are serviced by employers. The project reconstructs the sometimes very complicated regulatory framework for both countries, analyses the savings behaviour and in particular the changes in portfolio decisions, and finally focuses on the communication process between clients and financial institutions, which is documented in a large number of private, state and association archives.