Wealth and indebtedness of French households in 2015 Lessons from the European HFCS survey and international comparisons

Luc Arrondel and Jerome Coffinet

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Abstract: The success of Thomas Piketty's 2013 book, Capital in the 21st Century, has put the theme of inequality at the heart of economic policy debates. In addition, the financial crisis of 2008 has changed the behavior of savers, who now favor prudence in their portfolio. Spatio-temporal comparisons of the distribution of wealth and its composition therefore appear essential for analyzing these public policy issues.The European Household Finance and Consumption Survey collects information on household wealth, revenue and consumption habits. Those data enable a better understanding of savings and indebtedness behaviors, as well as an evaluation of financial weaknesses and monetary policy effects.The 2014-2015 wave shows that the concentration of financial assets is higher than that of real estate. Risky and long-term savings are essentially held by wealthy households, but stockholdings remain low.On average, French households claim to have 268,000 euros of assets gross. Half are indebted, on average up to 37,000 euros. The decile of the richest French holds about 46% of the total wealth, the richest percentile, about 15%. Increasing indebtedness essentially concerns wealthy people. Hence, the household situation does not reveal any major risk on financial stability in France.

Date: 2019-01
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Published in Revue de l'OFCE, 2019, 161, pp.49-75

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Working Paper: Wealth and indebtedness of French households in 2015 Lessons from the European HFCS survey and international comparisons (2019)
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