Wealth is an essential indicator of households' material well-being: assessing its amount, trend and distribution is useful to understand our society and the way it evolves.
Availability of data on wealth allows the central bank to understand better the interaction between households' behaviour, financial markets and the main macroeconomic variables, and supports the analysis needed to perform the institutional functions of a central bank.
In Italy, systematic macroeconomic estimates on overall household wealth are currently not available. A research project focusing on this specific topic has been set up by the Bank of Italy, which has dealt with the analysis of households' economic behaviour for a long time and publishes data on financial assets and liabilities.
The aim of the conference was to collect the experts' opinions on the methods used to obtain the wealth estimates in question. Moreover, the scientific works discussed at the conference have addressed the various aspects of wealth: amount, evolution, composition, distribution, origins.
The discussion arising from this conference was helpful for the forthcoming production of the new estimates provided on a regular basis by the Bank of Italy.
Organizing Committee
Grazia Marchese (Bank of Italy), Luigi Cannari (Bank of Italy) and Giovanni D'Alessio (Bank of Italy)
Secretariat
Alessandra Piccinini: alessandra.piccinini@bancaditalia.it
Carlo Muscariello: carlo.muscariello@bancaditalia.it
