In the last 2 decades, the Netherlands has experienced an increase in real-estate prices, accompanied by an increase in mortgages and a marked decline in household savings. As a consequence, banks are faced with a large retail funding gap: outstanding mortgage debt is insufficiently matched by...

Retained profits of firms exceed investment in the Netherlands. The resulting net savings are mainly invested in foreign assets, which is consistent with the surplus on the current account of the balance of payments. Both have increased to almost 10 per cent of GDP in recent years. We present a...