The empirical analysis of precautionary savings based on household level has long suffered from the assumption of no risk-sharing behavior and measurement errors. Using a unique dataset from China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), we provide an explicit estimate of the relative prudence...

Abstract This paper extends the decomposition of marginal effects suggested by McDonald and Moffitt [The Review of Economics and Statistics 62: 318-321, 1980] to a nonlinear tobit model, considering the increasing use of tobit analysis and substantive economic implications of the decomposition....