Loading...
Please wait, while we are loading the content...
Similar Documents
Personal savings in Africa: strengthening the institutional framework (commercial banks, post office savings banks, thrift and credit co-operatives, and savings banks proper)
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Hunt, Diana |
| Copyright Year | 1975 |
| Abstract | The United Nations is expressing increasing concern about personal savings mobilisation in underdeveloped countries. Currently attention is focussed on Africa. The purpose of this paper is to try to analyse this concern and to place the question of personal savings mobilisation in a broader economic perspective. Four types of savings institution are discussed in some detail: commercial banks, Post Office Savings Banks, thrift and credit cooperative societies and savings banks proper. The author takes issue with the more common criticisms of commercial banks and Post Office Savings Banks as mobilisers of personal savings in Africa, She also argues that the potential importance of cooperative societies has been exaggerated. PERSONAL SAVINGS IN AFRICA: STRENGTHENING THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK (COMMERCIAL BANKS, POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS, THRIFT AND CREDIT' COOPERATIVES AMD SAVINGS BANKS PROPER) We must distinguish economic surplus on the one hand from savings on the other in order to establish why and in what circumstances savings mobilisation is important for economic development. Potential economic surplus is 'the difference between the output that could be produced in a given natural and technological environment with the help of employable productive resources, and. what might be regarded as essential consumption" (Baran, 1957). There are various ways the surplus can be moblised. The main alternatives are 1. Taxation 2. Overseas borrowing 3. deficit financing 4. pricing policy (including use of state trading organizations) 5. deposits in banks and other financial institutions 6. sale of bonds and securities 7. lotteries 8. durect reubvestment by producers not using financial institutions 9. group mobilisation of slack labour for labour-intensive capital formation 10. other "self-help" projects 11. state directed real location of private sector resources 12. expropriation Of these alternatives 5, 6 and possibly 7 and 10 constitute the use of savings instruments. An issue any country must face if it wishes to raise capital accumulation is how to increase the productive mobilisation of its potentially available surplus. As a method the use of savings institutions has the political advantage that they represent a voluntaristic approach to mobilisation. They can, however, be costly to develop and the cost involved per unit saved is likely to vary between institutions. Also the scope for ensuring that mobilised savings are used to raise the value of future production varies between institutions and for savings institutions as a whole is far from complete. To state that there is a savings constraint to economic growth and/or poverty reduction is in the sense in which the term savings is used here (voluntary abstention from consumption out of income) to state |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/1193/wp323-316685.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
