Loans to households in the form of home purchase mortgages and consumer loans have increased considerably. The latest available data show that the increase in household spending is now extending to services. Real estate wealth, which accounts for over 60 per cent of net Italian household wealth, has turned upward again thanks to the initial signs of a recovery in prices.
Between 2007 and 2019, in contrast with the euro-area average, Italian firms’ debt dropped by nearly 7 percentage points, to 68 per cent of GDP (compared with an average of more than 100 per cent in the euro area).