Abstract:

One of the macroeconomic phenomena that affects virtually all economic entities, including households, is a change in the price level. Housing expenditures comprise a large portion of household expenditures in the Czech Republic, both in the form of rent / property management and energy costs. The recent market changes – including regular and cyclic changes as well as variations induced by the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two years – have brought about changes in prices and, proportionately, in household expenditures. In addition, there was also a reduction in household income that occurred at around the same time as many households were limited in carrying out their wage-earning activities or experienced a decline in demand for their services. This was to some extent reflected in their ability to also meet this type of considerable expenditures. During this period, the shift in the movement of people was accompanied by changes in the consumption behavior of individual households, in relation to housing, as their members spent much of their time at home, which in turn had an impact on household energy consumption. The rate of inflation in a country is targeted by the central bank, Česká národní banka (Czech National Bank) in this instance, which responds to economic performance variations, as was the case after the emergence of the current pandemic. The Czech Republic was one of the first countries to counteract the occurrence of COVID-19 on its territory by the introduction of lockdown measures, both in 2020 and 2021. This article aims to assess the impacts the accompanying changes in the price level, with respect to housing-related goods, had on households during the "COVID" period of 2020 and 2021 and the ability of households to meet primarily this type of expenditure. As the research results indicate, the majority of Czech households handled the situation without getting into difficulties in terms of meeting housing-related payments, rent and energy bills in particular, and avoided defaulting on their loans. The change in the price level of goods in this part of the market basket can be said not to have created an excessive strain on households during the covid period.