Kondycja gospodarstw domowych : I kwartał 2022 Badania Koniunktury Gospodarczej Instytutu Rozwoju Gospodarczego SGH

Abstract

In the 1st quarter of 2022, consumer confidence did not change significantly compared to the last quarter of the previous year, which is reflected in only minor changes (ranging from -2.0 to +2.7 points) in the quarter-on-quarter values of all four components of the IRG SGH consumer confidence indicator (IRGKGD). The value of the indicator is now -32.9 pts, increasing only very slightly, by 0.6 pts, compared to the previous quarter. It follows that after the largest one-time decline in the value of the IRGKGD (since the record-breaking second quarter of 2020), which took place in the fourth quarter of 2021, consumer confidence in Poland remains very low at the beginning of 2022. In the first quarter of this year, there was a further deterioration in the assessment of the country’s current overall economic situation, among other things. It can be assumed that respondents’ persistently negative assessments of their own current and future financial situation were influenced primarily by fears of inflation. It isall the more surprising, however, that consumers’ inflation expectations have declined in the current quarter. The value of the balance of responses to the question about the expected change in prices stands at 60.3 pts, which represents a drop by 10.8 pts compared with the fourth quarter of 2021 and a drop by 4.5 pts compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. This change may be due to consumers’ growing expectation that the measures taken by the Monetary Policy Council, which has been steadily raising interest rates since October 2021, will start to have an anti-inflationary effect in the coming months.