Household consumption and changes in retail trade during the economic crisis in Croatia
Blaženka Knežević
University of Zagreb, Croatia
bknezevic@efzg.hr
Abstract
Data on household consumption across Europe show growing trend of economic deprivation of persons and households. In addition, data on the structure of personal consumption are also showing that, in times of crisis, majority of population is oriented merely to satisfaction of basic needs. Moreover, due to the reduced consumption in households, indicators of business activity in retail industry show a negative effect not only through the reduction of generated income, but also through changed way of behaviour of the majority of consumers, which consequently leads to changes in the retail structure. In this paper we will analyse official statistics and other available secondary data for Croatia in order to confirm the thesis that retail formats with the lowest margins occupy an increasing share of the market.
Keywords: consumption; crisis; poverty indicator; retail; Croatia