Why Is Japan's Private Saving Rate So High?**An earlier version of this paper (Horioka [1985b]) was prepared while the author was a consultant in the Asian Department of the International Monetary Fund during the summer of 1985. The author wishes to thank the staff of the International Monetary Fund (especially Dr. Ching-yuan Lin, Mr. Hiroshi Shibuya, and Dr. Shinji Takagi) for their valuable advice and assistance and participants in seminars at the Institute of Fiscal and Monetary Policy of the Japanese Ministry of Finance and the Economic Research Institute of the Japanese Economic Planning Agency and several anonymous referees for their valuable comments. The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to any institution or organization. Moreover, any errors that remain are the responsibility of the author alone.