Table 5 reports the median savings rates disaggregated by subsample, along with the size of the subsample. Among the sturdy features, savings rates are lower for the midcareer group (30-49 years of age) than for either the younger (18-29) or older (50-64) working age group. Unemployment is generally associated with below average savings rates. Public sector employees save less than private sector employees in both Bulgaria and Poland (no data available for Hungary). Unconditional savings rates for other characteristics vary across the three countries: no common pattern emerges for rural versus urban households, for households headed by wage-earners versus self-employed individuals and pensioners, or for households with a full complement of durables versus households with few durables. With the exception of Bulgaria, savings rates also differ relatively little across the education level of the head of household.

The most pronounced differences can be seen across income strata: unconditional savings rates strongly increase with income in all three countries, matching results by Gregory, Mokhtari and Schrettl (1999) for Russia. The link is ex ante ambiguous: while the need for precautionary savings declines in income, the transition has pushed a significant fraction of households close to subsistence, reducing their savings capacity.<sup>7</sup> The last two rows aim to identify likely "winners" (households headed by younger, welleducated heads) and "losers" (households headed by older, less well educated heads of households) of the transition process. No clear pattern emerges.

# **4. Regressions**

To explore the conditional relationships, we regress household savings rates on standard demographic variables as well as variables likely to be associated with the probability that the transition will tilt the household's expected lifetimrie income profile upward and variables likely to indicate relative income uncertainty. Table 6 reports the regression results for the full sample. The top of each column identifies the country, the number of observations, the mean of the dependent variable and the R<sup>2</sup> , which falls within the typical range for cross section regressions based on household surveys.

By and large, the effects of the standard determinants do not contain major divergences from the typical pattern found for developing countries. The estimated age profile is quite flat, with an econometrically significant but quite small non-linear effect. The positive age effect for older households may reflect memory of past deprivation [Bernheim (1991,1994)], leading to greater precautionary savings of individuals remembering the immediate postwar period. Compared with the marked U-curve agesavings relation obtained by Gregory, Mokhtari and Schrettl (1999), the age schedule is less pronounced for these three transition economies, perhaps reflecting, the much sharper decline in life expectancy for middle-aged Russians since the early 1990s.

> 7 With some exceptions, the literature on savings in developing countries tends to find a positive income elasticity [See for instance Mikesell and Zinser (1973), Giovanini (1983), Mason (1988), Gersovitz (1988), Collins (1991) and Deaton (1990,1995), among others].