Comparative analysis of Poland and selected countries in terms of household financial behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic

Research background: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reduction in income or the total loss of jobs have affected the financial behaviour of consumers worldwide. Managing the budget in times of turbulence and crisis has posed a challenge for households. Purpose of the article: The aim of the article is to determine to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the financial behaviour of the inhabitants of various countries and how Poland has stood out from the rest. Methods: Due to the orderly nature of the questions analysed, non-parametric tests were used in the analysis. The distribution of current expenditure in comparison with the period before the pandemic was analysed, as well as the results of comparative analyses with Mann-Whitney U tests for comparison of Poland with Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France (974), Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the USA. A study was carried out on the relationship between planning for the future, having debts and savings and financial behaviour after the COVID-19 pandemic and the metric variables in the group of Poles via Chi square and a series of Tau Kendall's tests. Findings & value added: There has been a fall in expenditure compared to the period before the pandemic, which may explain the lack of opportunities to spend money, the fall in revenue and the freezing of expenditure for fear of an uncertain future. There has also been a change in the way payments are made. Payment cards and purchases made over the Internet are increasingly popular. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are trying to save more, but not everyone can afford to do so. Long-term value added of this paper is analysis of change in the model of financial behavior of households under the shock of the pandemic in international comparisons of the analysed countries.