New Zealand also saw a recovery in the household saving rate from a trough of -6.8 percent in 2003 to 2.4 percent in 2012. 9  Over a longer-term context it is striking that the 1990s and early 2000s were an exceptional period of low or negative saving.
For example, in Australia, the personal saving rate has averaged about 10 percent since 1960 and was as high as 19 percent in 1973. In New Zealand, household saving averaged 4 percent of household disposable income from 1987 to 1994, and was then negative for most years until 2010.