Household purchasing power grew for the seventh consecutive quarter in Italy in Q3 2024, new data from Istat, the Italian statistics agency, has revealed.
According to the data, the disposable income of Italian households grew by 0.6% in the third quarter of the year, while consumption increased by 1.6%.
At the same time, the propensity to save among Italian households stood at 9.2% in the quarter, a 0.8 percentage point decline on the previous period.
‘Moderate development’
Overall, household purchasing power was up 0.4% in the third quarter, Istat noted.
‘Household purchasing power, although showing a more moderate development compared to previous periods, is growing for the seventh consecutive quarter,’ it said in a statement. ‘The propensity to save decreases cyclically, but in trend terms it continues its growth path.’
On a year-on-year basis, Italy’s public finances showed a marked improvement in the third quarter of 2024, with the net public administration debt ratio to GDP decreasing to -2.3% from -6.3%, indicating a notable reduction in the fiscal deficit.
The primary balance of public debt (excluding interest expenses) was positive, at 1.7% of GDP, compared to -2.8% in the third quarter of 2023, while the current account balance of public administrations improved to 1.9% of GDP, compared to 1.6% in 2023.
‘In the third quarter of 2024, the incidence of the general government deficit on GDP improved significantly compared to the corresponding quarter of 2023,’ Istat noted.
Non-financial corporations
At the same time, non-financial corporations found the going slightly tougher, seeing their profit share decrease to 42.4%, down by 0.3 percentage points on the previous quarter, while the investment rate dropped to 21.7%, a reduction of 0.4 percentage points on the previous quarter.
‘Non-financial companies show a cyclical decrease in both the profit share and the investment rate, confirming the trend of their reduction observed starting from the first months of 2023,’ Istat said. Read more here.
