The paper discusses the inclusion of usufruct rights in household wealth estimates, highlighting the theoretical rationale for adjusting traditional estimates that do not account for this component. It then applies this concept to the Italian context by using data from the survey on household income and wealth (SHIW) conducted by the Bank of Italy.
Usufruct is quite rare and only concerns about 3 per cent of homes. Nevertheless, it has a non-negligible impact on the average wealth figures for the families concerned; those with older heads of household are penalized, while younger ones benefit the most. The distribution of net wealth in Italy would therefore be less concentrated compared with current data.
