15 Whilst the HES provides a flawed estimate of aggregate household saving relative to national accounts data, 16 it is reasonably consistent in its methodology over time, affording a useful decomposition of changes in saving patterns. The HES data shows a smaller increase in the median saving ratio relative to the rise in the overall level of saving (or the aggregate saving ratio).
This appears to be explained by much lower dissaving among individuals below the median as opposed to higher saving among those above the median. The saving ratios at the top end of the saving distribution are largely unchanged (figure 7).