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Household wealth in Italy and in advanced countries

Author

Listed:
  • Diega Caprara

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Riccardo De Bonis

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Luigi Infante

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

The paper studies the long-term evolution of household wealth in order to compare the changes in Italian financial wealth and real wealth with those of the most advanced countries. In Italy households� real wealth is 5.5 times disposable income, while housing wealth is 4.6 times, and financial wealth is 3.8 times disposable income. Therefore total gross wealth is around 9.3 times disposable income. Given that household liabilities make up 80 per cent of disposable income, total net wealth is 8.5 times income. In France and Spain household non-financial wealth also exceeds that of financial assets, while the contrary holds in the United States and in Germany. In Italy the ratio of gross financial wealth to disposable income is in line with that in France, greater than in Spain and Germany, and smaller than in the USA, Japan, the UK, and Canada. With the exception of Germany and Japan, changes in financial assets are mainly due to price changes in financial instruments � holding gains or losses � rather than to financial transactions. In the last two decades the financial portfolio of Italian households has become more similar to the average portfolio of the advanced economies. Italian household debt is the lowest by international comparison.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_470_18
    as

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    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2018-0470/QEF_470_18.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    financial wealth; households; non-financial wealth; debts; financial accounts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

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