Austrian Households’ Financial Wealth: An Analysis Based on Microeconomic Data

Microeconomic data on households are providing increasingly important information for many economic policy issues. This study presents the results of a survey conducted by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank on Austrian households’ financial wealth. The descriptive presentation of household financial wealth also covers data on household debt and investment. Household income is shown to have a significant influence on the level of financial assets. The results of logit estimates and a cluster analysis demonstrate the prominent role of net household income on investment decisions. By far the greatest volume of household financial assets is invested in savings deposits and in deposits made under building loan contracts, but 16% of all households also stated that they owned stocks.