Identification of excessive Russia's household debt burden

Abstract

Modern trends characterized by increasing Russian household debt against the stagnation of real income of the population demonstrate the importance of analytical tools within the regulator. It helps identify the level of debt burden in household sector and to develop an analytical toolkit that makes it possible to reveal debt burden. The paper uses the methods of statistic and graphical analysis as well as comparative and GAP-analysis. The empirical analysis is based on data of the Federal State Statics Service and Bank of Russia over a period of 1.01.2007–1.01.2019. The study develops the methodology to create an indicator for household sector debt burden both on macro- and micro-level. Based on the methodology, we develop a new financial stability index of household sector and its calculation algorithm. We offer the evaluation method of threshold value of this index and determine its quantitative value. The findings concerning debt burden level in Russia’s household sector drawn on the basis of this indicator confirm its suitability for using as an additional diagnostic tool of Russia’s financial stability.