Effects and determinants of household debt in Portugal
As the amount of debt has gradually increased, particularly in recent years, Portugal is currently one of the European countries exhibiting one of the highest levels of overall indebtedness, including in both sovereign and private sectors. Indeed, this condition is the outcome of increasing levels of debt assumed not only by the government, but also by companies and families, being the later mostly due to mortgage loans and due charges. This paper focuses on the study of borrowing by Portuguese households. The research has been made in respect to the notion of debt, the consequences of recent developments in debt, among other factors. In order to analyze the factors that are most associated with debt, a study was developed using two multiple regression models, one using a longer time series and another shorter, evaluating the effect of several variables, such as consumption, savings, unemployment, inflation and interest rates, in order to check whether they could be associated with a higher level of debt. ; This work is funded by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE and by National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology under the project with the reference PEst-C/CJP/UI4058/2011 ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion