Changes in consumer's behavior of households in the Visegrad four countries in the period between 2007 and 2009

Abstract

The onset of the economic crisis belongs to the years 2007 to 2009. This article evaluates the household consumption behaviour of European countries, especially in the Visegrad Four (V4), using consumption spending categories classified according to COICOP (Classification of Individual consumption by purpose) and using data available in the database of the European Commission, Eurostat. Available data include spending for the major commodities within the three years. The paper is devoted to the analysis of expenditure development, especially in the V4 countries and assesses whether there are any transfers of the shares between categories. The categories with the highest share of European household expenditures are: Food and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as Housing, water, gas and other fuels, transport. Furthermore, attention is concentrated, whether economic maturity of the V4 countries is reflected in the expenditure structure of selected countries. To search similarities in household consumption behaviour in EU countries, a cluster analysis is used. The results are shown in dendograms that help identify the differences among the individual EU states.