2025/Q2 Article 09. Spanish households’ marginal propensity to consume between 2017 and 2022
Series: Economic Bulletin.
Author: Henrique S. Basso and Marina Gómez-García
Household finances
- Microeconometrics and microdata
- Inequality
- Consumption and saving
Full document
Abstract
Rationale
Since 2019 consumption in Spain has increased less than income and the saving rate has risen. This article analyses households’ marginal propensity to consume and its potential contribution to the change in the saving rate.
Takeaways
- Marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is estimated in the Survey of Financial ompetences (ECF by its Spanish initials) and the Spanish Survey of Household Finances (EFF by its Spanish initials) by the response to the following question: “What percentage of a lottery prize equal to one month’s income would you spend over the following 12 months?”.
- Compared with its pre-pandemic levels, MPC has fallen in Spain in recent years. According to the EFF, this decline is considerable among higher income households, renter households and those whose liquid assets have increased more.
- The estimated changes in MPC account for close to 2 percentage points of the rise in the aggregate saving rate between 2017 and 2022 (50% of the increase in this period).