The Crisis Hits Home : Stress-Testing Households in Europe and Central Asia

Abstract

The financial crisis and economic downturn threatens the welfare of more than 160 million people who are poor or are just above the poverty line in the economies of Eastern and Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Turkey. This note concerns the findings of recent World Bank analysis (Tiongson et al. 2010) that uses precrisis household data and aggregate macroeconomic outcomes in these countries to simulate the impact of the crisis on households, transmitted via credit market shocks, price shocks, and income shocks. The adverse effects are widespread, with both poor and non-poor households being vulnerable. By 2010, for the region as a whole, it is estimated that some 11 million more people will be in poverty and more than 23 million additional people will find themselves just above the poverty line because of the crisis.