Advancement on Spain’s household deleveraging process
Fecha: octubre 2013
Autores: Santiago Carbó Valverde, Francisco Rodríguez Fernández
Etiquetas: Saneamiento financiero, Deuda privada, Familia
Spanish and International Economic & Financial Otlook, SEFO, V. 2 N.º 5
High private sector debt levels associated to asset price bubbles and related lending booms have made household deleveraging a common and painful consequence of financial crises in many countries. As recently pointed out by the IMF and the European Commission, deleveraging remains one of the major challenges for the Spanish economy over the next few years. In this context, this article provides an analysis of the recent evolution and prospects of household debt and financial savings rates in Spain. Spain’s private sector debt levels have increased rapidly in recent years compared to the majority of its European peers, and its financial savings rate has been negative until 2012, due to the large incurrence of liabilities. Nevertheless, our analysis reveals that although the debt reduction effort may still take some years, deleveraging seems to be accelerating recently. Funcas’ estimates for 2013 point to a continued acceleration in the deleveraging effort, permitting Spanish families to progressively increase financial savings and their net financial wealth.