This study analyzes the life cycle of private individuals' savings in Brazil, reflecting on how the proportion of savers changes as the population ages. To this end, we employ a multinomial logit model to compare the probability of savings and dissavings for individuals, according to their ages, based on data from the Household Budget Surveys (HBS) of 2002-2003 and 2008-2009. The results confirm a greater incidence of savers among middle-aged adults and a greater percentage of dissavers among the elderly. However, given the age structure of the Brazilian population, demographic change is still expected to result in an increase in the number of net savers in the coming years.

The population aging process has caused a financial imbalance in the social security systems of countries based on pay as you go system, as is the case in Brazil. To face this challenge, the Brazilian governments have undertaken several reforms since the 1988 Constitution. Confronting the life cycle hypothesis, the aim of this paper is to estimate the causal effects of Social Security Reforms on the Likelihood of Saving in Brazil by exploring two exogenous events, the 41th (of 2003) and 47th (of 2005) Constitutional Amendments, that reduced the expectations of benefits only for public servants. Using data from the House Budget Surveys, the results of differences-in-differences models show that the reform increased in a range of 2.1 to 2.9 percentage points in the probability of saving of the treated group. The results are in line with the recent literature indicating that reforms contribute to an increase in personal savings.

A previsão do PIB é um dos principais balizadores para as decisões produtivas de agentes econômicos. Com o objetivo de realizar previsões para o crescimento do PIB trimestral brasileiro, são utilizadas 16 séries mensais financeiras e econômicas como potenciais preditores, abrangendo o período do segundo trimestre de 1996 ao quarto trimestre de 2012. Para isso, aplicaram-se as abordagens MIDAS (Mixed Data Sampling) e UMI-DAS (Unrestricted Mixed Data Sampling), confrontando seus resultados de previsão fora da amostra com o benchmark ARMA. Foram encontrados erros de previsão menores nessas abordagens, principalmente quando utilizadas informações dentro do trimestre de previsão. Os resultados foram ainda melhores quando empregados múltiplos regressores.

Abstract:The life cycle/permanent income theories predict that consumption would be constant over time but such result has been challenged by some empirical studies which show a systemic decrease in consumption at retirement. This paper aims to investigate the so-called retirement consumption puzzle for Brazil and the State of Rio Grande do Sul. We estimated consumption functions controlling age effects for 12 composite goods using information from the 2008-2009 Household Budget Survey. The results showed that households' expenditures systematic decrease with age for 7 composite goods (food, clothing, transport, hygiene, education, recreation and miscellaneous) and increase with age for 2 composite good (health care and housing). The patterns found to the households' expenditures by age structure brings evidence of retirement consumption puzzle in Brazil.Keywords: Households behavior. Demographics. Retirement consumption puzzle. Resumo:As teorias da renda permanente e do ciclo de vida predizem que o consumo é uma variável constante ao longo do tempo, porém esse resultado tem sido desafiado pelas evidencias empíricas de alguns estudos que mostram uma redução sistemática no consumo das famílias na aposentadoria. O objetivo do presente artigo é investigar o chamado enigma do consumo na aposentadoria para o caso do Brasil e do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Para tanto, a partir dada base de dados da Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares

O tempo de percurso a cidades polos regionais influencia na mortalidade em pequenos municípios gaúchos? Does time spent traveling to regional hub cities to receive healthcare influence mortality in small towns in Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil? ¿El tiempo de desplazamiento a ciudades que son polos regionales tiene influencia en la mortalidad en los municipios pequeños del Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil?