Friday, January 13, 2012

13/1/2012: Irish Household Income and Consumption: Q3 2011

The latest data on disposable income (Institutional Accounts) from CSO presents the picture of real recession ravaging Irish economy. Here are the core details from Q3 2011 - the quarter when Irish economy tanked once again in terms of aggregate GDP and GNP.
  • Gross disposable income of Irish households in Q3 2011 amounted to €21,761 million - a decline of 4% yoy and a drop of 4.3% qoq.
  • By use of disposable income (separate database proving longer historical series), gross disposable income of households dropped 3.8% yoy and 4.2% qoq.
  • Final consumption has declined 3.8% yoy and 2.5% qoq.
  • Gross savings of the households fell 3.9% yoy and 11.6% qoq


Using Q1-Q3 2011 data we can compute expected annualized series for 2011, which are shown in chart below. In annualized terms:
  • 2011 is forecast to see gross disposable income of Irish households drop 2.9% yoy on 2010 and reach -14.2% cumulative fall on the peak at 2008
  • Final household consumption expenditure is set to fall 2.7% yoy and 16.2% on peak at 2008
  • Gross household savings is expected to fall 4% yoy and 17% on the peak in 2009

 Of course, in the above, Gross household savings includes repayments of debts, which is reflected in the fact that since the beginning of the crisis, our savings were rising, just as out incomes tanked.

1 comment:

Jason Loughrey said...

Those savings rates are clearly following a very strong seasonal pattern. They look very volatile on that graph but much less so if you strip out the seasonal effects. Based on recent trends, we should probably expect a large decline in the savings rate in the fourth quarter.