The Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) is a statistical survey conducted by the Sample Surveys Division of the Banca d'Italia (the Italian central bank). The main objective of the SHIW is to study the economic behaviours of Italian households. In recent years the survey has been integrated in international research projects such as the Luxembourg Income StudyLuxembourg Income Study
/ref> and the Luxembourg Wealth Study,
whose aim is to produce a comparable cross-national Data Archive on household income and wealth. Starting from 2008, the survey has also been part of a project conducted by the

European Central Bank The European Central Bank (ECB) is the prime component of the monetary Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's most important centr ...

to produce a harmonized survey on household finances and consumption in the Euro area (Survey on Household Finance and ConsumptionSurvey on Household Finance and Consumption
/ref>).

Methodology and scope

The

sample size Sample size determination is the act of choosing the number of observations or replicates to include in a statistical sample. The sample size is an important feature of any empirical study in which the goal is to make inferences about a populatio ...

comprises about 8000 households selected from population registers. In order to analyse any changes in the phenomena under investigation, since 1989 about half of the sample has included households interviewed in previous surveys (panel households). Data collection is entrusted to a specialised company using professional interviewers and CAPI methodology. The survey collects the following information: * Characteristics of the household and of its members (number of income earners, gender, age, education, job status, and characteristics of the dwelling); *

Income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. Fo ...

: (wage and salaries, income from self-employment, pensions and other financial transfers, income from financial assets and real estates); *

Consumption Consumption may refer to: *Resource consumption *Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically * Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms * Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...

and

saving Saving is income not spent, or deferred consumption. Methods of saving include putting money aside in, for example, a deposit account, a pension account, an investment fund, or as cash. Saving also involves reducing expenditures, such as recur ...

(food consumption, expenses for housing, health, insurance, spending on durable goods, and household saving); * Wealth in terms of

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

financial asset A financial asset is a non-physical asset whose value is derived from a contractual claim, such as bank deposits, bonds, and participations in companies' share capital. Financial assets are usually more liquid than other tangible assets, such a ...

s, liabilities; * Special modules such as capital gains, inheritance,

risk aversion In economics and finance, risk aversion is the tendency of people to prefer outcomes with low uncertainty to those outcomes with high uncertainty, even if the average outcome of the latter is equal to or higher in monetary value than the more c ...

, unpaid work,

economic mobility Economic mobility is the ability of an individual, family or some other group to improve (or lower) their economic status—usually measured in income. Economic mobility is often measured by movement between income quintiles. Economic mobilit ...

, social capital, tax evasion,

financial literacy Financial literacy is the possession of the set of skills and knowledge that allows an individual to make informed and effective decisions with all of their financial resources. Raising interest in personal finance is now a focus of state-run progr ...

. Surve
data
from 1977 to 2014 are freely available for research purposes on the Banca d'Italia’s website (formats:

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

, SAS and Stata).

Main uses

The main uses of the survey are: * for research projects linked to the functions of the Banca d'Italia; * for ex-ante evaluation of economic policies through microsimulation models such as EuromodEuromod
and Econlav;Econlav (in Italian)
* for academic research;Bibliography
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718173027/http://www.bancaditalia.it/statistiche/indcamp/bilfait/biblio/biblio_ing_2.pdf , date=2011-07-18 of the publications based on the survey * to improve the information coming from macro statistics such as

National Accounts National accounts or national account systems (NAS) are the implementation of complete and consistent accounting techniques for measuring the economic activity of a nation. These include detailed underlying measures that rely on double-entry ...

. The main results of the SHIW are diffused through the Supplements of the Statistical Bulletin.Household Income and Wealth 2014
Supplements to the Statistical Bulletin

Notes

External links

Survey on Household Income and Wealth (official) website

Banca d'Italia

Cross National Equivalent File (CNEF)
(URL accessed 2016-01-28) Economy of Italy Economic data Panel data Household income Household surveys

Methodology and scope

Main uses

See also

Notes

External links