As it does every year, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) presents a research under the banner of its flagship publication Development in the Americas (DIA). The title chosen for 2017 is “Saving for Development”. The research throws up a very different idea about the reasons for saving from the traditional view: the reason is not based on the need for protection against chance adverse events, but in its more positive consideration of growth, prosperity and wellbeing.

According to these findings, all economic agents need to look at saving from this another perspective: people save to achieve a comfortable lifestyle, enterprises do so in order to position themselves on the market with competitive products and good quality jobs, and governments save in order to provide the goods and services appropriate to guaranteeing a productive economy.

After concluding that the poor state of saving in the region is manifest, it lays out the strategic goals that these agents should adopt: creating a favourable climate for saving and spending more efficiently, thus generating more savings in order to shore up growth; promoting the development of financial systems, repairing retirement systems and encouraging a culture of household saving.