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Contents

1 Financial and non-financial assets, liabilities and net worth of households in an international comparison
2 The household sector's real economy and financing processes, financial and non-financial assets and liabilities and net worth according to Hungarian macro statistics
2.1 The integrated national accounts of the household sector
2.2 Factors influencing households' financial savings
2.3 Gross wealth and net worth of the household sector
2.4 Distinguishing the wealth of the ssole proprietors within the household sector
3 Financial and non-financial assets, liabilities and net worth of households based on the first domestic wealth survey
3.1 Presentation of the survey's key results
3.2. Aligning survey results to the indicators of the national accounts
3.3 Distribution of household assets and liabilities within the sector
4 Distribution of household income and the wealth within the sector in an international comparison
5 Notes on methodology
5.1 Definition of the main statistical concepts used in this publication
5.2 Methodological notes on the international data
5.3 Methodological notes on Hungarian macrostatistical data
5.4 Methodological notes on data obtained from the household survey
5.5 References and recommended literature
5.6 Abbreviations
6 Tables

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Foreword

Economic agents usually record their revenues, expenses and wealth, and they regularly report their income and wealth position to other economic agents and authorities concerned. In line with the accounting requirements, economic entities (companies, government institutions, non-profit organisations) prepare statements about their revenues, expenses and wealth that serve as the basis for statistical recording and national accounts compilation as well. However, private individuals and the sole proprietors, who are part of households, are only required to report a portion of their revenues, i.e. their income, while they usually do not disclose or provide administrative data about other parts of their revenues, their expenses and especially their wealth. Therefore, macrostatistics overwhelmingly construct the household sector's production, income distribution, savings and accumulation processes and estimate the sector's financial and non-financial assets and liabilities based on the data from the partner sectors and intermediaries in the transactions. Therefore while the sectoral macrostatistical indicators of financial and non-financial corporations, the general government or the non-profit institutions serving households can usually be further subdivided and detailed with the help of the institution-level administrative data substantiating them, in the case of households, separate surveys are necessary for this.

Regular, household-level surveys on income and consumption have been conducted for decades in developed countries; therefore the examination of income disparities within the household sector has a long history. However, due to the lack of appropriate data, the distribution of the various assets and liabilities (wealth) among households has not been part of the examination until recently. Another difference in measuring wealth as compared to the corporate sectors is that household surveys can only be based on sampling due to the large population, and on account of the lack of own records and experience in reporting, the quality of these surveys lags behind those conducted among companies and budgetary or non-profit organisations, which has to be borne in mind when using the data. Nevertheless, the newly appeared household wealth surveys provide much-needed information, paving the way for the household-level examination of stock data. In Hungary, the first comprehensive statistical survey about households' financial and non-financial assets, liabilities and other financial characteristics was conducted in 2014. In addition to the household sector's macro-level data derived from the national accounts, this publication presents the distribution of income and wealth among households based on the results of that survey.

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