Poor and wealthy hand-to-mouth households in Belgium

Laurens Cherchye1, Thomas Demuynck2, Bram De Rock3, Mariia Kovaleva2, Geoffrey Minne4, Maite De Sola Perea4,5, Frederic Vermeulen6
1Department of Economics, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Kortrijk, Belgium
2ECARES, Université libre de Bruxelles. Avenue F. D. Roosevelt 50, Brussels, Belgium
3ECARES, Université Libre de Bruxelles and Department of Economics, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Brussels, Belgium
4National Bank of Belgium, Bruxelles, Belgium
5Department of History, Universiteit Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium
6Department of Economics, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium

Tóm tắt

We identify the population shares of poor hand-to-mouth households, wealthy hand-to-mouth households and non hand-to-mouth households in Belgium. We apply the methodology proposed by Kaplan & Violante (2014) and Kaplan et al., (2014) to the Belgian component of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. We find that the fraction of hand-to-mouth households in Belgium is substantial and predominantly consists of wealthy hand-to-mouth households. We also compare the observable characteristics and marginal propensities to consume (MPCs) of the three household types. Belgian wealthy hand-to-mouth households have characteristics that resemble those of the non hand-to-mouth households, while their MPCs are often more similar to those of the poor hand-to-mouth households. This pleads for giving a unique place to each type of household when evaluating the effects of fiscal policy.

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