Abstract:

The fact that only a minority of Austrian households hold securities and other long-term forms of saving can only in part be explained by a lack of ability to save. The risk perceived by the saver seems to be a further important reason why the majority of Austrians do not avail themselves of long-term forms of investment offering higher yields. For this reason an attempt is made in this paper to apply the model of "perceived risk", which has been used successfully in the analysis of consumer behaviour, also to the explanation of savings decisions made by the private investor.