Les Suisses sont-ils prudents?

Using a cross-section of swiss households we test whether savings behavior is driven by a precautionary motive. Panel data would facilitate this task but are not available in the swiss context. We therefore propose estimators for key parameters such as household income risk. The permanent income model is nested within the precautionary saving model. We find that a precautionary motive is present among households as a whole but is not quantitatively important. A closer look at the data suggests that a precautionary motive is more present among some groups of occupation, as for others the hypothesis that income risk does not affect consumption cannot be rejected.