This post is part of a series highlighting the key findings of the Global Financial Development Report 2015 | 2016: Long-Term Finance. You can view the entire series at gfdr2015.
The second part of Chapter 2 of the 2015 Global Financial Development Report examines the use of long-term finance by households. The section first discusses the main reasons that households use long-term finance products, while highlighting the risks inherent to their use. Making use of recent data initiatives, it then shows how usage of long-term finance varies substantially both across and within countries, and then outlines a set of policy recommendations that can help develop and promote long-term finance markets.
Why would households use long-term finance? And what are the risks they can incur?
Long-term finance offers households various tools to achieve their changing objectives throughout their life-cycle. Products such as pensions, insurance, or annuities can help households prepare for retirement, smooth their life cycle income, and insure against various life cycle risks. Student loans or mortgages can make lumpy but potentially high-yield investments affordable to households. Long-term savings instruments can allow households to accumulate and reap term premiums.