In 2015, the value of Italians' financial assets continued the recovery that began in 2012, approaching 4.000 billion euros. From the trough, more than 500 billion lire have been recovered, thanks in particular to the increase in quotations. On the other hand, the growing difficulties of Italians in setting aside new savings remain evident.
With the crisis, households have changed the composition of their financial portfolio, trying to adapt it to the new external context. Low interest rates are increasingly driving Italians away from government bonds, which have come to represent only 3% of the portfolio, up from 20% in the mid-200s. Furthermore, households show a growing lack of interest in bank bonds, also penalized by a different risk assessment compared to the past: the value of the investment has fallen below 400 billion euros, from almost 2009 in XNUMX.
Low interest rates, on the other hand, do not penalize deposits, which continue to attract the attention of households, being the only instrument capable of guaranteeing security and liquidity. The total value of the investment exceeded 1.270 billion, more than 30% of the total. In recent years, the profitability of household financial investments has declined. In the composition of total income, the weight of interest has decreased: in the mid-1.800s, every Italian received an average of more than 2015 euros each year; in 600, it received about 4,5. The different composition of the portfolio and the drop in average returns, which fell from 2,2% to XNUMX%, weighed heavily.
The crisis has also affected the profits distributed by companies: before the crisis, this item guaranteed 10% of total household resources, while in recent years it has stabilized below 7%. The sharp drop in returns on financial investments penalized the dynamics of household disposable income, which remained substantially unchanged over the last few years, at just over 1.000 billion euro. The situation appears in all its complexity passing from aggregate values to per capita values.
In 1995, every Italian theoretically had an annual income of 12.428 euros. In 2008, we had risen to 18.516. In 2015, we stopped at 17.667. Net of the price variation, the purchasing power of Italians' incomes shows a delay compared to 2007, which is close to 15%.
