IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/183.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Households’ Saving and Debt in Italy

Author

Abstract

We review savings trends in Italy, summarizing available empirical evidence on Italians’ motives to save, relying on macroeconomic indicators as well as on data drawn from the Bank of Italy’s Survey of Household Income and Wealth from 1984 to 2004. The macroeconomic data indicate that households’ saving has dropped significantly, although Italy continues to rank above most other countries in terms of saving. We then examine with microeconomic data four indicators of household financial conditions: the propensity to save, the proportion of households with negative savings, the proportion of households with debt, and the proportion of households that lack access to formal credit markets. By international comparison, the level of debt of Italian households and default risk are relatively low. But in light of the deep changes undergone by the Italian pension system, the fall in saving is a concern, particularly for individuals who entered the labor market after the 1995 reform and who have experienced the largest decline in pension wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula, 2007. "Households’ Saving and Debt in Italy," CSEF Working Papers 183, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:183
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csef.it/WP/wp183.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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).
    2. Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 2010. "Does Consumption Inequality Track Income Inequality in Italy?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), pages 133-153, January.
    3. Chiuri, Maria Concetta & Jappelli, Tullio, 2003. "Financial market imperfections and home ownership: A comparative study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 857-875, October.
    4. Franco Modigliani, 2005. "The Collected Papers of Franco Modigliani, Volume 6," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 6, number 0262134543, October.
    5. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio & Terlizzese, Daniele, 1992. " Saving and Capital Market Imperfections: The Italian Experience," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(2), pages 197-213.
    6. Giovanni D’Alessio & Stefano Iezzi, 2013. "Household over-indebtedness - Definition and measurement with Italian data," IFC Bulletins chapters,in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Proceedings of the Sixth IFC Conference on "Statistical issues and activities in a changing environment", Basel, 28-29 August 2012., volume 36, pages 496-517 Bank for International Settlements.
    7. Orazio P. Attanasio & Lucio Picci & Antonello E. Scorcu, 2000. "Saving, Growth, and Investment: A Macroeconomic Analysis Using a Panel of Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 182-211, May.
    8. 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.
    9. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli & Mario Padula, 2013. "Pension Wealth Uncertainty," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 80(4), pages 1057-1085, December.
    10. Orazio P. Attanasio & Agar Brugiavini, 2003. "Social Security and Households' Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(3), pages 1075-1119.
    11. Bottazzi, Renata & Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario, 2005. "Retirement Expectations, Pension Reforms and Their Effect on Private Wealth Accumulation," CEPR Discussion Papers 4882, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Tullio Jappelli & Marco Pagano, 1994. "Saving, Growth, and Liquidity Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(1), pages 83-109.
    13. Karen E. Dynan & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2004. "Do the Rich Save More?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 397-444, April.
    14. Luca Casolaro & Leonardo Gambacorta & Luigi Guiso, 2005. "Regulation, formal and informal enforcement and the development of the household loan market. Lessons from Italy," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 560, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. Samuel Bentolila & Andrea Ichino, 2008. "Unemployment and consumption near and far away from the Mediterranean," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(2), pages 255-280, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giovanni Gallo & Costanza Torricelli & Arthur van Soest, 2016. "Individual heterogeneity and pension choices: How to communicate an effective message?," Department of Economics 0080, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    2. Luciano Fanti & Luca Gori, 2011. "On economic growth and minimum wages," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 103(1), pages 59-82, May.
    3. Piotr Bialowolski & Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, 2014. "The Index of Household Financial Condition, Combining Subjective and Objective Indicators: An Appraisal of Italian Households," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 118(1), pages 365-385, August.
    4. Menkhoff, Lukas & Rungruxsirivorn, Ornsiri, 2011. "Do Village Funds Improve Access to Finance? Evidence from Thailand," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 110-122, January.
    5. Le Blanc, Julia, 2016. "Household Saving Behaviour in Ireland," Economic Letters 05/EL/16, Central Bank of Ireland.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:sef:csefwp:183. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Lia Ambrosio). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.