Impact des politiques monétaires non conventionnelles menées par la banque centrale européenne sur l'investissement des ménages belges en actifs financiers

Abstract

The financial crisis, which has led to a confidence crisis following the failure of Lehman Brothers, has plunged the whole economy into a period of high uncertainty and risk aversion. This has caused a climate of instability at the economic and financial levels.

First of all, this paper seeks to trace the evolution of the consumers’ confidence index according to the European Central Bank operations of non-standard monetary policy.

Then, we focused on the financial behaviour of Belgian households. We tried to determine whether the increase of the Belgian confidence level has resulted in a raise of investment in risky financial assets. We found that Belgian consumers turned to investment funds. By analysing the evolution of investment funds by investment policy, we saw that the stocks of equity funds and mixed funds have increased more than the stocks of bond funds. This tendency has been much more manifested in Belgium than in other countries of the Eurozone. In order to explain this financial trend, we concentrated on national components such as taxation policy or consequences of the 2008 crisis on the Belgian banking system. We observed that the best structure in terms of taxation was the investment company with variable capital, which invests more than 90% of its portfolio in equities. Additionally, we went back to the consequences of the financial crisis on the Belgian banking environment. We found out that the failure of Dexia and Fortis has raised investors’ awareness about the importance of diversification and the use of professional managers.

Finally, we discussed the current and future threats of investing in mutual funds. The emphasis was put on the comparison between the taxation systems of the class 23 insurance contracts and the mutual funds.