Polarization of household saving in Poland during financial crisis 2007-2010

In this paper we analyse the changing structure of Polish households with regard to the household saving rates in 2007-2010 and compare it with similar distribution of household saving during 1997-2000. The analysis is based on the household budget panel data from three panels of 15,000 of Polish households selected by authors for years 2007-2008, 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 from the Household Budget Surveys for 2007-2010. We estimate the long-term ergodic distribution of households according to saving rates. Our results show that the long term distribution of households reveals a tendency towards polarization of households with regard to saving rates. Comparing these results with the Authors’ previous research for 1997-2000 for Poland we indicate that between 1997-2000 and 2007-2010 the change in polarization of households was asymmetrical towards the highest saving rate groups. That explains why Polish households could maintain the increase in savings during the financial crisis of 2007-2010.