IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/opques/qef_147_13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Italian households� opinions on the difficulty of saving

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Bassanetti

    (Banca d'Italia)

  • Concetta Rondinelli

    (Banca d'Italia)

Abstract

The paper investigates the opinions of Italian families on the advisability and the possibility of saving. The analysis was carried out using the monthly micro-data underlying the Italian consumer survey conducted by Isae up to 2010 and by Istat thereafter. The results show that in recent years there has been a sharp increase in the proportion of households that consider it appropriate to save. This appears to be closely related to their expectations about the cyclical situation, in particular unemployment, pointing to a strengthening of the precautionary motive. By contrast, since the second half of the last decade only a small number of households state that they have actually been able to save. This also seems to be linked to the structural characteristics of the household. The growing gap between the advisability and the possibility of saving is greater for the elderly and, among young people, for those living alone, renting their accommodation and working under a fixed-term employment contract. The discrepancy is greater for households that reside in the larger municipalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Bassanetti & Concetta Rondinelli, 2013. "Italian households� opinions on the difficulty of saving," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 147, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_147_13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2013-0147/QEF_147.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luigi Guiso & Monica Paiella & Ignazio Visco, 2005. "Do capital gains affect consumption? Estimates of wealth effects from Italian households� behavior," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 555, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    2. Tito Boeri & Andrea Brandolini, 2004. "The Age of Discontent: Italian Households at the Beginning of the Decade," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 63(3-4), pages 449-487, December.
    3. Riccardo De Bonis & Andrea Silvestrini, 2012. "The effects of financial and real wealth on consumption: new evidence from OECD countries," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(5), pages 409-425, March.
    4. Gabriele, Stefania & Martelli, Bianca Maria & Raitano, Michele, 2009. "How dark is the night: the consumers’ mood coping with the crisis.Evidences from ISAE Consumer Survey," MPRA Paper 16289, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Olivier Bandt & Thomas Knetsch & Juan Peñalosa & Francesco Zollino (ed.), 2010. "Housing Markets in Europe," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-642-15340-2, March.
    6. Stefania GABRIELE & Bianca Maria MARTELLI & Michele RAITANO, 2009. "How Dark Is The Night: The Consumers� Mood Coping With The Crisis. Evidences From Isae Consumer Survey," Journal of Applied Economic Sciences, Spiru Haret University, Faculty of Financial Management and Accounting Craiova, vol. 4(3(9)_Fall).
    7. Ando,Albert & Guiso,Luigi & Visco,Ignazio (ed.), 1994. "Saving and the Accumulation of Wealth," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521452083, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lenka Mynaříková & Vít Pošta, 2023. "The Effect of Consumer Confidence and Subjective Well-being on Consumers’ Spending Behavior," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 429-453, February.
    2. Giarda, Elena, 2013. "Persistency of financial distress amongst Italian households: Evidence from dynamic models for binary panel data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3425-3434.
    3. Ersi Athanassiou & Ekaterini Tsouma, 2017. "Financial and Housing Wealth Effects on Private Consumption: The Case of Greece," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 15(1), pages 63-86.
    4. Vittorio Peretti & Rangan Gupta & Roula Inglesi-Lotz, 2012. "Do House Prices Impact Consumption and Interest Rate in South Africa? Evidence from a Time-Varying Vector Autoregressive Model," Working Papers 201216, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    5. Riccardo De Bonis & Daniele Fano & Teresa Sbano, 2013. "Houshold Aggregate Wealth In The Main OECD Countries From 1980 To 2011: What Do The Data Tell Us?," Mo.Fi.R. Working Papers 82, Money and Finance Research group (Mo.Fi.R.) - Univ. Politecnica Marche - Dept. Economic and Social Sciences.
    6. Diega Caprara & Riccardo De Bonis & Luigi Infante, 2018. "Household wealth in Italy and in advanced countries," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 470, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    7. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio, 2002. "Private Transfers, Borrowing Constraints and the Timing of Homeownership," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 315-339, May.
    8. Schünemann, Johannes & Trimborn, Timo, 2023. "Boosting taxes for boasting about houses? Status concerns in the housing market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 120-143.
    9. Tullio Jappelli & Marco Pagano, 1994. "Personal Saving in Italy," NBER Chapters, in: International Comparisons of Household Saving, pages 237-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Giuseppe Bertola & Luigi Guiso & Luigi Pistaferri, 2005. "Uncertainty and Consumer Durables Adjustment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 973-1007.
    11. Canziani, Patrizia, 1997. "Firing costs and stigma: an empirical analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20330, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Esteban Prieto & Sandra Eickmeier & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2016. "Time Variation in Macro‐Financial Linkages," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1215-1233, November.
    13. Barbara CAVALLETTI & Corrado LAGAZIO & Daniela VANDONE, 2008. "Il credito al consumo in Italia: benessere economico o fragilita’ finanziaria?," Departmental Working Papers 2008-24, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    14. Malick Souare, 2003. "Macroeconomic Implications of Population Aging and Public Pensions," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 100, McMaster University.
    15. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli, 2005. "Awareness and Stock Market Participation," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(4), pages 537-567.
    16. de Blasio, Guido & De Paola, Maria & Poy, Samuele & Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2018. "Risk Aversion and Entrepreneurship: New Evidence Exploiting Exposure to Massive Earthquakes in Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 12057, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09mgl1k0t17 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Erich Battistin & Raffaele Miniaci & Guglielmo Weber, 2003. "What Do We Learn from Recall Consumption Data?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(2).
    19. Nyakabawo, Wendy & Miller, Stephen M. & Balcilar, Mehmet & Das, Sonali & Gupta, Rangan, 2015. "Temporal causality between house prices and output in the US: A bootstrap rolling-window approach," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 55-73.
    20. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Simonelli, Saverio & Acconcia, Antonio, 2015. "The Consumption Response to Liquidity-Enhancing Transfers: Evidence from Italian Earthquakes," CEPR Discussion Papers 10698, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Riccardo Massari, 2009. "Is income becoming more polarized Italy? A closer look with a distributional approach," Working Papers 1, Doctoral School of Economics, Sapienza University of Rome.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    savings; qualitative surveys; disposable income;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_147_13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.