How Did the Greek Financial Crisis Impact on Households? A Comparison between the Two Waves of the HFCS

The paper investigates how the financial crisis impacts on Greek households. To do so, we compare the 2009 and 2014 waves of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey using Greek microdata. We show that median household net wealth declined by 40% during the crisis and this change is statistically significant. The decrease in the value of household net wealth is primarily attributed to the devaluation of real estate assets and secondarily to the lower value of financial assets. Also, there is a decrease in the outstanding balance of household debt and mortgage debt, but this variation is not statistically significant. However, a statistically significant decrease in household non-mortgage debt is observed. Finally, we find that median household income and household food consumption declined by 26% and 27%, respectively. The drop in household income and food consumption is statistically significant across the corresponding distributions