IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/opques/qef_559_20.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An introduction to Italian balance sheets: methodology and stylized facts

Author

Listed:
  • Luigi Infante

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Francesco Vercelli

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

Balance sheet statistics are included in the national accounts system and provide a complete framework for analysing the wealth of a nation and its evolution over time. The paper presents Italian balance sheets, compiled using data on financial accounts produced by the Bank of Italy and non-financial asset data calculated by Istat, the Italian National Institute of Statistics. We provide stylized facts on the comparison between Italy and other major economies, taking into account the statistical comparability limits on non-financial assets across countries. In Italy, the ratio of non-financial assets to gross wealth increased from 43 to 47 per cent between 2005 and 2008 because of the dynamics of housing prices. It then gradually decreased from 2012, reaching 41 per cent at the end of 2017. The net wealth of Italian households far outweighs the negative values reported in the public sector. The ratio of net wealth to income is high in Italy compared with other countries; nevertheless, the gap has narrowed over the last decade.

Suggested Citation

  • Luigi Infante & Francesco Vercelli, 2020. "An introduction to Italian balance sheets: methodology and stylized facts," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 559, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_559_20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2020-0559/QEF_559_20.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher D. Carroll & Misuzu Otsuka & Jiri Slacalek, 2011. "How Large Are Housing and Financial Wealth Effects? A New Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(1), pages 55-79, February.
    2. Alchian, Armen A & Klein, Benjamin, 1973. "On a Correct Measure of Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 5(1), pages 173-191, Part I Fe.
    3. Luigi, Cannari & Giovanni, D'Alessio & Grazia, Marchese, 2008. "Italian Household Wealth: Background, Main Results, Outlook," MPRA Paper 15106, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. John Muellbauer & John Duca, 2012. "Tobin Lives: Integrating evolving credit market architecture into flow of funds based macro-models," Economics Series Working Papers 622, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. R. W. Goldsmith, 1966. "The Uses Of National Balance Sheets," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 12(2), pages 95-133, June.
    6. Michael Reiter, 1999. "Asset prices and the measurement of wealth and saving," Economics Working Papers 396, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    7. Riccardo De Bonis & Alberto Franco Pozzolo (ed.), 2012. "The Financial Systems of Industrial Countries," Springer Books, Springer, edition 127, number 978-3-642-23111-7, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mairead Roiste & Apostolos Fasianos & Robert Kirkby & Fang Yao, 2021. "Are Housing Wealth Effects Asymmetric in Booms and Busts?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 578-628, May.
    2. Dimitrios Sideris & Georgia Pavlou, 2021. "Disaggregate income and wealth effects on private consumption in Greece," Working Papers 293, Bank of Greece.
    3. Luigi, Cannari & Giovanni, D'Alessio & Grazia, Marchese, 2008. "Italian Household Wealth: Background, Main Results, Outlook," MPRA Paper 15106, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Douglas Sutherland & Peter Hoeller & Balázs Égert & Oliver Röhn, 2010. "Counter-cyclical Economic Policy," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 760, OECD Publishing.
    5. Serdar Ozkan & Kurt Mitman & Fatih Karahan & Aaron Hedlund, 2016. "Monetary Policy, Heterogeneity and the Housing Channel," 2016 Meeting Papers 663, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Stolbov, M., 2012. "Financial Accelerator Theory and the Russian Mortgage Market," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 79-98.
    7. Nyakabawo, Wendy & Miller, Stephen M. & Balcilar, Mehmet & Das, Sonali & Gupta, Rangan, 2015. "Temporal causality between house prices and output in the US: A bootstrap rolling-window approach," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 55-73.
    8. L. Arrondel & P. Lamarche & F. Savignac, 2015. "Wealth Effects on Consumption across the Wealth Distribution: Empirical Evidence," Working papers 552, Banque de France.
    9. Charles Ka Yui Leung & Joe Cho Yiu Ng, 2018. "Macro Aspects of Housing," GRU Working Paper Series GRU_2018_016, City University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics and Finance, Global Research Unit.
    10. Brito Paulo & Marini Giancarlo & Piergallini Alessandro, 2016. "House prices and monetary policy," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 251-277, June.
    11. Giovanni L. Violante & Greg Kaplan, 2022. "The Marginal Propensity to Consume in Heterogeneous Agent Models," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 747-775, August.
    12. Stephen Bell & John Quiggin, 2006. "Asset Price Instability and Policy Responses: The Legacy of Liberalization," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(3), pages 629-649, September.
    13. Jiao Danxiao & Wu Di & Li Xiuting & Dong Jichang & Dash Wu Desheng, 2014. "A Dynamic Model of Housing Wealth Effect: Based on the Diversity of Wealth Expectations," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 47-53, February.
    14. Richard Disney & John Gathergood, 2018. "House Prices, Wealth Effects and Labour Supply," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(339), pages 449-478, July.
    15. Esteban Prieto & Sandra Eickmeier & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2016. "Time Variation in Macro‐Financial Linkages," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1215-1233, November.
    16. Marco Airaudo & Salvatore Nisticò & Luis‐Felipe Zanna, 2015. "Learning, Monetary Policy, and Asset Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(7), pages 1273-1307, October.
    17. Michael D. Bordo & David C. Wheelock, 2004. "Monetary policy and asset prices: a look back at past U.S. stock market booms," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Nov), pages 19-44.
    18. Riccardo De Bonis & Matteo Piazza, 2021. "A silent revolution. How central bank statistics have changed in the last 25 years," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 74(299), pages 347-371.
    19. John Muellbauer, 2012. "When is a Housing Market Overheated Enough to Threaten Stability?," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Alexandra Heath & Frank Packer & Callan Windsor (ed.),Property Markets and Financial Stability, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    20. Xiaoqin Sun & Yuhai Su & Honglei Liu & Chengyou Li, 2022. "The Impact of House Price on Urban Household Consumption: Micro Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-20, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Balance sheet statistics; sector wealth;

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_559_20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.