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Get ready for this: the current average savings rate in China is 30% and rising.  As I've mentioned before, a country's savings is a critical way to improve and grow their economy.  In terms of our national economic strategy, we are rapidly losing ground to other countries as we take on more foreign debt and sell off American assets.  One of the biggest and highest-growth economies is that of China.  The fuel that turbo-charges their growth is their national savings rate of 30% which continues to rise fast.  Compare that to the U.S. savings rate which has averaged only a paltry 2% ever since the turn of the century. 

In an interesting twist, some economists think that China's high savings rate is in part impacted by the huge imbalance of boys (30 million or so) that results in their parents saving more to help them attract a wife in a highly-competitive market with a scarcity of women per this New York Times story:

The high Chinese savings rate has been one of the wonders of the world. The household savings rate, as a proportion of disposable income, is 30 percent, and has been rising rapidly in recent years. That figure is twice as high as the highest rate ever recorded in the United States.

Traditional explanations for varying savings rates, such as life cycles — working age people save more — and income uncertainty, do not help much in explaining the rapid rise in China.

Now two economists say they have found a reason that explains a large part of the increase. China has too many boys.

In a working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research today, two economists, Shang-Jin Wei of Columbia University and Xiaobo Zhang of the International Food Policy Research Institute, note that “By 2005, men outnumbered women at age 25 or below by about 30 million.” In 2007 there were about five boys born for every four girls.

“Families with sons compete with each other to raise their savings rate in response to ever-rising pressure in the marriage market. Competitive saving by these families spills over to greater savings by other families, possibly through raising the prices of nontradable goods such as housing.”

“Across Chinese provinces, there is clear evidence that local savings rates tend to be higher in regions with more unbalanced sex ratios.”

In other words, parents want their sons to marry, and they figure that girls are more likely to want to marry rich boys.

The authors note that while they looked only at China, “other economies known to have a strong sex ratio imbalance include Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and India. These countries also happen to have high savings rates.”