ABSTRACT
Among policymakers and commentators there is a virtual consensus today that the United States saves too little, and there is only scattered disagreement about whether something can and should be done about it. But journalistic analysis, if not professional opinion, is actually based on a rather unreflective reliance on one, or perhaps two, statistical measures of national saving behavior. It would assist intelligent discussion of these issues to have in view the multiple meanings of the term saving. My object here is to lay out some of the main alternative conceptions of saving and their interpretation and to present data comparing recent U.S. saving behavior with its own past and with the saving behavior of other nations.
