Secondary data-set have come to play an increasing role in empirical economic research. This paper examines the major new secondary data-set assembled by Klaus Deininger and Lyn Squire and the World Bank. We concentrate on its coverage of the OECD countries. We have particularly in mind the user...

The paper compares Italian and American households� wealth in 1998. The analysis is based on the Survey on Household Income and Wealth (Bank of Italy) and on the Survey of Consumer Finances (Federal Reserve Board). Tangible assets appear to be the main wealth component in both countries. In...

This paper studies the role of citizens� demand for political information in elections and provides a possible explanation for the poor empirical support encountered by political economy models of income redistribution. It shows that incentives to gather political information may derive...

This paper examines the relationship between inequality and happiness through the lens of heterogeneous values, beliefs and inclinations. Drawing upon opinion data from the European Social Survey for twenty-three countries, we find that individual views on a wide range of themes can be...

This paper presents a panel of internationally comparable Gini coefficients, based on the United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) World Income Inequality Database (WIID) version 1.0. The 221 data points that match minimum requirements of spatial...

Sample surveys providing high quality information on both total household expenditure (consumption) and income are not commonly available. Nevertheless, surveys focusing on income usually do collect some information on expenditure data. A main drawback of this practice is that it could let some...

The objective of the paper is to adjust for the bias due to unit non-response and measurement error in survey estimates of total household financial wealth. Sample surveys are a useful source of information on household wealth. Yet, survey estimates are affected by non-sampling errors. In...

We study the distribution of housing wealth in Italy using data from a sample survey (the survey on household income and wealth) and from administrative records regarding real estate owners held by the Italian Department of the Treasury. Our results show that owners with either a low or a high...

The paper presents the main results of the Eurosystem�s Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) with an emphasis on the data for Italy in the international context. The paper examines households� socio-demographic characteristics, assets and income distribution, participation...

This paper exploits the tax records to analyze the geography of income inequality in Italy. In 2011, the Gini coefficient, the most common measure of inequality, was 40 per cent at national level. In the South it was 3 percentage points higher than in the Centre-North, mainly because of a...