“Households draw on their savings to cushion the impact that higher energy prices have on consumption.” This is what the ECB affirms in an anticipation of the economic bulletin in which it is estimated that the impact is about five six times greater for the poorest families. “The increase in energy prices – the economists suggest in the ECB study – has significant distributional implications, which require targeted fiscal policy measures”.
The ECB’s analysis aims to assess how energy prices impact private consumption and through which channels, knowing that “since energy demand is not elastic in the short term, this large increase in prices implies a decline in the consumption of households who need it. to be absorbed either through a reduction in non-energy consumption of products and services, or through a reduction in savings, or through an increase in earnings “. A premise that is answered in the final part of the substantial analysis.
“Households draw on their savings to cushion the impact that higher energy prices have on consumption – the European Central Bank researchers write – The empirical evidence confirms that, at least in the short term, households substantially reduce their savings ratios to cope with the increase in energy spending (although to a lesser extent if liquidity reserves for unforeseen expenses are limited) “.
Obviously the impact is not the same for everyone.
“The identification of the savings responses on different income quintiles reveals that, with the same absolute increase in energy expenditure, the reduction in savings is inversely related to household income and about five or six times greater for households in the lowest quintile. of the distribution of income compared to those of the upper quintile “. In practice, 20% of the poorest families greatly reduce their savings.
Source: Ansa
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