The last decade has seen significant increases in consumer indebtedness in western countries, causing concern about its economic and social impact. In particular, over-indebtedness is attracting attention from national and international authorities because of its potential effect on both the...

The growth in top incomes occurring in most Oecd countries as from the closing decades of the 20th century is by now well documented, while hard thinking in terms of evaluating the phenomenon appears overdue. Prompted by Franzini Ricchi e poveri. L’Italia e le disuguaglianze (in)accettabili...

This paper describes the evolution of the main indicators of economic wellbeing and inequality in Italy from the aftermath of World War II onwards, showing that their dynamics have differed over time periods and population subgroups. It also presents some reflections on the adequacy of per...

In recent years, a vast literature has focused on thè mie played by economic variables in determining the perceived well-being of individuals. Analyses conducted so far show that economic aspects explain only a part of the variability in happiness: other profiles, such as health and family...

This paper is aimed at evaluating the incidence of measurement error in the Bank of Italy's Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW). In the case of time-invariant variables, we assess the degree of inconsistency of answers given by panel households in subsequent survey waves. For quantities...

This paper presents the main findings of the Survey on Household Income and Wealth for the Italian region of Lombardy. To get a large enough sample, the observations on 2004, 2006, and 2008 were pooled. The work sets out the structural characteristics for Lombardy prior to the crisis, with...

The paper compares income inequality of households and individuals. Obviously, the latter is greater than the former; in fact households operate a broad redistribution of resources both between earners and non earners (children, unemployed, housewives), and between earners of unequal income....