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Liquidity-poor households in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic

Author

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  • Mariano Graziano

    (Bank of Italy)

  • David Loschiavo

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic led to a large and immediate decline in households’ aggregate spending and a surge in bank and postal deposits; although little is known about how this was distributed. This paper overcomes the lack of timely micro-data on households’ liquidity by looking at supervisory data on deposits, introducing a new method to estimate the trend in liquidity distribution and the percentage of liquidity-poor households. We find that in 2020 there was a decrease both in the degree of deposit inequality among Italian households and in the share of liquidity-poor households, alongside government support measures that allowed some households at the bottom of the liquidity ladder to save out of their declining income. The increase in households’ liquidity improved their ability to repay debts and this could help spending patterns to rebound once confidence about the economic outlook is restored. Despite this, households with insufficient liquidity buffers still constitute a large share of population, making their debt repayment capacity dependent on the strength of the economic recovery.

Suggested Citation

  • Mariano Graziano & David Loschiavo, 2021. "Liquidity-poor households in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 642, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_642_21
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Polina Popova & Maria Semenova & Vladimir Sokolov, 2023. "Covid-19 And Retail Depositor Strategies In Russian Regions: Whether To Withdraw And Why?," HSE Working papers WP BRP 92/FE/2023, National Research University Higher School of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    liquidity; distribution; financial poverty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • E66 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General Outlook and Conditions
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents

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