Over-indebtedness in Italy: how widespread and persistent is it?

Giovanni D'Alessio and Stefano Iezzi

No 319, Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the measures of over-indebtedness proposed in the literature and to apply them to the Italian case from 2008 to 2014 by using the wide array of information available from the Bank of Italy�s survey on households. The numerous measures of over-indebtedness are critically analysed from both a cross-sectional and a historical perspective. The panel also enables us to analyse the transition into and out of over-indebtedness. Moreover, by using the Eurosystem�s Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), we can compare the over-indebtedness of Italian households with that of other euro-area countries. The paper also addresses the issue of the measurement errors that could bias both the level of over-indebtedness and estimates of the transition into and out of it.

Keywords: household debts; over-indebtedness; poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D91 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_319_16

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