This paper presents a statistical procedure for improving the quality of data on deposits from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) by integrating them with individual records from administrative sources. It also uses bank reports on deposits by asset class to refine the methodology of the Distributional Wealth Accounts (DWA) developed within the ESCB to produce wealth distribution statistics that are consistent with the national accounts.
According to the new estimates, the distribution of deposits is less concentrated than both the original SHIW data and those estimated using the DWA methodology. However, the impact on the overall wealth inequality indicators is negligible, as deposits only account for 14 per cent of Italian households' net worth.
