1. Results from the survey among institutes on consumers and crisis
European Commission
Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs
Results from the survey among institutes on consumers and crisis
Roberta Friz
Fourth Joint EU-OECD Workshop on
Business and Consumer Opinion Surveys
Brussels, 12 October 2009

2. In Spring 2009, we conducted a survey among institutes
The purpose
In Spring 2009, we conducted a survey among institutes
To investigate on the social dimension of the crisis
Survey could provide useful information through, for example, the breakdowns by income, education, etc…
in Spring 2009, the Commission together with the OECD asked to the institutes participating in the harmonized EC business and consumer surveys if they were collecting information, or planned to do so, on the impact of the financial crisis on households and, if so, what kind of preliminary results would be available.
There was, as a matter of facts, a big interest to learn more on how the crisis impacted different class of households and we thought that surveys could provide useful information through some specific questions. Given the experience of the institutes, there was also a big interest to learn on how the data could be analysed in order to obtain such information
Roberta Friz
European Commission, Economic and Financial Affairs

3. Request was send to 53 institutes Ten institutes replied “positively”:
The results
Request was send to 53 institutes
Ten institutes replied “positively”:
Half of them already did some analysis of the existing survey in order to evaluate the impact of the crisis on households' financial conditions
The other half planned to introduce questions in their surveys that could capture the social dimension of the financial crisis
We sent the request to our 53 institutes, of which 27 (50%) are carrying out the consumer survey.
We received 22 replies. Around half of the institutes replied that they did not make any study on the impact of the crisis on households' financial condition and that they were not planning to do it.
Then, the remaining 10 institutes replied “positively”. Around half of them already did some analysis of the existing survey in order to evaluate the impact of the crisis on households' financial conditions. The other half was planning to introduce some new questions/survey to order to capture the social dimension of the crisis.
The analysis that the institutes did - or intended to do - are rather varied. I will try to give a brief overview of them.
Roberta Friz
European Commission, Economic and Financial Affairs

4. The results
Among the institutes that already did some analysis of the existing survey, we have:
GfK Turkey
ISAE (Italy)
Estonian Institute of Economic research
University of Cyprus
GfK Poland
Among the institutes that already did some analysis we found GfK Turkey and the Italian Institute for economic analysis (ISAE) that will in fact present their results this morning.
Both used the existing survey but also a set of ad hoc questions aimed to seize different aspects to the impact of the crisis.
Then we have two institutes, namely the Estonian Institute of Economic Research and the University of Cyprus; that have/or introduced questions linked to the unemployment. For example in Estonia they have an additional question on their quarterly questionnaire on the probability that a person will become unemployed over the next 3 months.
Finally, GfK Poland introduced several questions aimed to catch two different aspects of the crisis: the political aspect (asking for example who the respondent considered as responsible of the crisis in Poland, polish government versus international financial organisations) and the impact on consumption one (asking, for example, if respondent that it would be better, in present time, to avoid paying services and trying to do it by oneself or if it would cut down usage of everyday’s products / resign from cable on satellite TV…)
Roberta Friz
European Commission, Economic and Financial Affairs

5. The results
Among the institutes that planned to introduce questions in their surveys, we have:
GfK Austria
GfK Germany
Statistics Finland
INSEE (France)
Poland (Labour and living Condition Department of the Statistical Institute)
Among the institutes that planned to introduce questions in the survey, we have GfK Austria and Germany and Statistics Finland that all introduced (or intend to do that) question on fear/probability to become unemployed. Then they all try to look into other aspects. More political related in the case of GfKs and more “consumption” oriented in the case of Finland.
Finally, we have France and Poland, were both institutes introduced questions or took actions in order to improve the timeliness of the availability of the data linked with “standard of living” survey. For example, INSEE is conducting, since March 23009, two special surveys on the impact of the current economic crisis on the households, which consist in max 20 questions each. The first survey will be asked 4 time a year (“privations”, money problems, capacity to pay bills to buy clothes, shoes, food…).The other survey is related with difficulties linked to “housing” and will be asked twice a year. The surveys aims at collecting data analogous to those collected in the but would be available earlier.
Roberta Friz
European Commission, Economic and Financial Affairs

6. Conclusions
Several analysis/study are already available at country level
A number of institutes introduced new questions/new surveys
Thank you!
Taking in mind that the survey conducted among institutes surely underestimate what is available at country level; we saw that there are several studies available at country level done using the tendency surveys (mainly consumers survey, but not only).
Summing up what we received from the institutes, we saw that: using consumer and business surveys or adding new questions to tendency surveys, it is possible to obtain useful information in order to grasp several aspects of the impact of the crisis on households. For some results we will have to wait some more time as one need longer time series before drown conclusions (for example the feature that several institutes are looking into is the probability to become unemployed) but will surely contribute a lot for the assessment of the impact of the current crisis on the households.
Some results have already been analysed and the way this analysis has been done could serve as example for other institutes and also for ourselves.
Roberta Friz
European Commission, Economic and Financial Affairs