Italian household debt over the business cycle (1998-2004)

This paper aims to analyse the socio-economic profile of indebted Italian households and possible changes of such profile occurred in the recession period (2001-2004) with respect to that of expansion (1998 – 2000). In order to pursue this aim, Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) has been applied to the Burt matrix obtained by merging the 1998 and 2000 Surveys on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) of the Bank of Italy, that is the expansion phase surveys, and setting as supplementary individuals the rows of the Burt matrix obtained by merging the 2002 and 2004 surveys (SHIW) of the Bank of Italy, that is the recession phase surveys. Through this double merging, it has been possible to analyse jointly the surveys conducted in two different but homogeneous years as far as macroeconomic trends are concerned. The analysis of the above mentioned data has highlighted that, on the whole, the socio-economic profile of indebted Italian households has undergone, in the recession period with respect to that of expansion, noteworthy changes, partly due to the gradual transformation of instruments used in the payment of instalments on more favourable terms and partly due to the high uncertainty with regard to the general economic perspectives which characterize the recession period. Keywords: household debt, purchasing behaviour, business cycle, multiple correspondence analysis.