The paper provides an overview of the main statistics produced by the Bank of Italy: financial accounts, monetary statistics, balance of payments, household and business surveys. The volume discusses the problems related to the measurement of economic phenomena, how statistics can be used for policy evaluation, the challenges for official statistics posed by globalization, the digital economy and big data.
Statistical production in the Bank of Italy for the purposes of economic analysis is carried on intensively. This paper illustrates its characteristics in a concise and accessible form to a wide audience of potential users. The contributions collected in this volume were also used as background readings for the students enrolled in the course 'Laboratory of Financial and Monetary Statistics' held in the 2021/22 academic year within the European Master in Official Statistics (EMOS) at the Sapienza University of Rome.
