Partnership for capacity development in household surveys
for welfare analysis
LAUNCH EVENT
Remarks by Valeria Sannucci,
Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy
Rome, June 19 2017
Good morning ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of Governor Visco, I am pleased to welcome you all to the Bank of Italy in Rome. It is
indeed an honour today for the Bank of Italy to host the distinguished representatives of the World
Bank and of all the institutions involved in this important Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
As part of its legal mandate, the Bank of Italy currently promotes technical cooperation with
central banks and other institutions in the emerging countries. Through staff training activities and
consultancy, the Bank aims at helping to improve the institutional capacities of the beneficiary
institutions, establishing relationships that strengthen reciprocal ties. Moreover, the Bank is Italy's
representative in numerous international organizations and institutions, such as the World Bank,
cooperating with them in various ways, with the ultimate purpose of promoting international
financial stability and a smooth functioning of the payment system. The partnership we are
launching today is thus an integral part of this more general context.
The cooperation between the World Bank and the Bank of Italy in the field of statistics was
not born today. In October 2015 another MoU between these two institutions was entered into. On
that occasion, several areas of collaboration were pointed out: improving the availability, quality
and cost-effectiveness of data production to inform policy making in low and middle income
countries; engaging in research on subjects of common interest; promoting the harmonization of
household surveys; and engaging other entities, such as research institutions and local academia, to
give additional support to the abovementioned activities.
In this framework, our institutions co-founded the Center for Development Data (C4D2) in
Rome, with which we have been working for the past 2 years. Let me now share with you my
personal satisfaction in having contributed to launching a project that has organized such a wide and
knowledgeable team of institutions which can significantly improve the statistical data for welfare
analysis in developing countries and in our countries too.
Contributing to the achievement of a world free of poverty is the ultimate goal for which all
economists should bear responsibility. To this end, economic growth, although necessary, may not
be a sufficient condition for everyone to make progress. Nowadays there is great concern about the
possible effects of technical progress and globalization on inequality. Both in developed and
developing countries, political institutions must constantly monitor the different segments of their
populations to ensure that no one is left behind and promote a shared prosperity. In this perspective,
sample surveys acquire a strategic role. Cooperation in this field arises from the awareness that
macroeconomic data are not enough for economic analysis. It is essential to look at the distribution
of phenomena and not only at averages, in particular when dealing with household welfare and
inequality.
Microdata derived from household surveys are not only a powerful descriptive tool; they can
be employed in more complex statistical analyses to study how variables as different as an
individual's occupational status, social environment and personal values relate to consumption and
saving behaviour. General models can thus be adapted to new scenarios and to the measures
referring to estimated subgroups.
Throughout its history, the Bank of Italy has been an active producer of statistics, and in
particular of household survey data. In June 1947 the then Governor Luigi Einaudi, during the work
of the Constituent Assembly of which he was a member, advocated the need for collecting
information on the standard of living of Italian citizens. By the 1950s, the Bank of Italy had already
worked with Doxa, a private company, on conducting surveys on household finances. In the early
sixties, the Bank of Italy conducted several pilot surveys on the income, consumption and savings
of Italian households and in 1966 the first official survey was conducted. Since then, the Bank of
Italy has interviewed almost 200,000 households in what is now called the Survey on Household
Income and Wealth (SHIW), collecting biannual data on several aspects of economic behaviour.
SHIW data have been often used in the Bank of Italy to carry out structured research
projects on the main economic themes, like saving and consumption behaviour, ageing and the
pension systems, distribution of wealth, measures of well-being and financial vulnerability.
Moreover, the availability of a database containing a large amount of information on Italian
households has enabled policy measures to be evaluated, thereby contributing to an informed public
debate.
Thanks to the free availability of anonymous microdata, survey data have also been widely
used for academic research. A recent bibliography of scientific works that over time have used the
survey data included over 800 articles by more than 450 authors at the end of 2016. This has
improved the accountability of the Bank and enriched the economic debate.
Over the years, the Bank of Italy's statisticians have explored the methodological issues of
the SHIW in detail, focusing both on its potentials and pitfalls. While a standard methodological
report allowing for the analysis of standard errors is always attached to each survey report, specific
studies have been carried out on various topics, like unit non-response, measurement errors, under-
reporting and micro-macro reconciliation. This long experience has taught us that in sample surveys
the adoption of best practices in the collection of survey data can significantly increase the
reliability of estimates. Moreover, if the move towards the standards is widespread, comparisons are
also positively affected by the change, adding value to each statistical source.
For a number of years the Bank of Italy has been promoting projects aimed at harmonizing
SHIW data with those obtained from other surveys, such as the Luxembourg Income Study and the
Luxembourg Wealth Study. In recent years our survey has become part of the Eurosystem's
Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), coordinated by the European Central Bank.
The HFCS includes harmonized surveys on household income and wealth from 18 euro-area
countries, as well as Poland and Hungary. The network of participants has proved to be a very
valuable forum for exchanging experiences in conducting surveys and fostering the adoption of
uniform best practices. We hope the expertise acquired on these technical grounds can be useful for
the present project.
In fact, at the present time, survey data do not always share common standards regarding
sampling, coverage, definition of variables or valuations and estimation methods as more standard
statistics like national accounts do. This is particularly true in the developing countries, which often
face peculiar difficulties in conducting sample surveys, due to a lack of population lists, logistic
problems in territories, and so on. Improving the availability of reliable data production is a
valuable ingredient for promoting evidence-based policy making; this is why, although it is a costly
exercise, it is crucial for low and middle-income countries to invest in this field.
The cooperation starting today will initially focus on training with the objectives of
improving the quality and coherence of international training for statistical capacity building on
microdata, and of supporting training activities in these fields based in low and middle-income
countries.
In particular, the project will implement a training program for statistical capacity building in
household surveys, through some week-long training courses and workshops, to be held in the Bank of
Italy's premises, and with training sessions in various statistical training centres in Africa. By adopting a
training of trainers (ToT) approach, the project will exploit a multiplier effect, spreading the ability to
deal with sample surveys beyond the participants and reaching a large number of low and middle
income countries.
A further and no less important aim of this project is building a network which includes experts
from many developed and developing countries. The exchange of experiences can be beneficial
for improving statistical capacity in household surveys and fostering convergence towards
common standards.
Let me conclude with the words of Luigi Einaudi which have often been quoted by those
who have succeeded him as Governors of the Bank of Italy. All policymakers, all institutions
should base their modus operandi on the principle 'Conoscere per deliberare' (know, then decide).1
It expresses the need for a policy based both on knowledge and data, as can be derived from
microsimulation model estimations when analysing alternative scenarios and policy measures.2
Einaudi would certainly have approved the efforts we are all making in pursuing this current
project. He would also have appreciated the presence of a number of important Italian institutions
here today. It is important that the Bank of Italy is not alone in this endeavour. Cooperation with the
Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Italian Agency for
Development Cooperation, the Italian National Institute of Statistics and the Italian National
Institute of Health means fostering dialogue among different disciplines and recognizing the
multidimensional nature of human well-being, the measurement of which is the aim of household
surveys. Yet it also testifies to the commitment of leading Italian public institutions to working
together to strengthen our cooperation with developing countries.