ACCI Conference 2024

Using the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, this research explores the relationship between savings for emergency, financial, and demographic variables. An essential factor for a family’s financial well-being is the ability to cover unexpected expenses, such as a car or furnace repair, or something even more financially challenging, such as a job loss. (Copeland, 2019). In practice, it is recommended that an individual has at least three months of income in savings in case of emergency. Savings are essential for consumers to pursue long-term financial and overall well-being (Van Praag & Frijters, 2003). To better understand emergency saving behavior, we created an outcome variable that indicates whether the person has at least three months of income in savings. Overall, saving behavior is influenced by many factors. A range of personal and household characteristics, including familial, economic conditions, and financial knowledge, contribute to the likelihood of saving and having financial assets (Babiarz & Robb, 2014; Gjertson, 2016). We use a variety of supervised learning statistical techniques for classification, such as logistic regression, random forest, and support vector machines, to estimate and tune the parameters of our classification model.

Author(s): Jose-Francisco Diaz-Valenzuela, Camden Cusumano