Abstract
While the literature, both international and in South Africa, is relatively rich in studies on the
determinants of foreign direct investment as well as the determinants of savings, none of the
work done on South Africa has made use of disaggregated savings data to understand whether
there is an observable difference in the marginal propensity to save of the different economic
sectors. Thus, this paper attempts to assess the marginal propensity to save by the household,
corporate and government sectors in South Africa. The results of the econometric analysis
demonstrate that the greatest responsiveness of savings to GDP growth occurs amongst
corporates. These findings should inform the South African government on how to regulate
sectoral taxation that intends to encourage savings, given the low level of savings in the
country.