New Zealand’s net national saving (gross national saving minus consumption of fi xed capital) as a percentage of GDP currently lies below that of Australia, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, as well as falling well short of the OECD mean. Up until the global fi nancial crisis, this was caused by private (household and business) saving, which has been negative since 2003. However, wealth measures, which also include capital gains, indicate households’ net wealth had still been increasing (mainly as a result of increased net housing wealth) at least until the onset of the global fi nancial.
