This report summarises key stylised facts from the first wave of the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey, which provides household-level data collected in a harmonised way in 15 euro area countries for a sample of more than 62,000 households. The report presents results on...

The Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) is a recent initiative from the Eurosystem to collect comparable micro-data on household wealth and indebtedness in the euro area countries. The Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN), which comprises the European Central Bank (ECB),...

This paper summarises the accounting principles and methodology used by statisticians within the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) to assess the impact on the government's fiscal position of the assistance measures undertaken to support the financial sector during the financial crisis. It...

This paper reviews the development of the quality of the main fiscal data released through the Excessive Deficit Pr ocedures (EDP) since the euro's introduction. As such, this paper presents the outcome of various econometric tests based on all the vintages of the annual main fiscal data...

To carry out the analysis required for monetary policy, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) need comprehensive and reliable government finance statistics. The focus of government finance statistics has traditionally been the government as a whole...

Much of the literature on inequality, both that on the theoretical features of inequality measurement and that on the discussion of the results of empirical analysis, has preferred to focus on income inequality. This paper looks into the analysis of wealth inequality, which can be performed by...