the shiw, from 5. 3 in 1993 to 6. 4 in 2004. this is clearly a pattern shared by many other countries. on the other hand, net financial assets show a much more moderate trend. overall, there seems to be little question that over this long period wealth has increased at higher rates, for many countries much higher rates, than household disposable income ”. the work by thomas piketty has shown that these trends began even earlier, in the 1970s, 26 although the global financial crises may have somewhat modified them. in the united states the ratio of real assets to household disposable income fell back to 4. 2 in 2013, although in italy it still stood at 6. 6 in 2014. the increase in wealth may reflect the accumulation of personal savings or changes in asset values. but saving rates do not seem to show marked increases ; if anything, in some countries they have been on a declining trend. so, much of the substantial rise in wealth - to - income ratios was due to asset prices. this raises several questions, that matter from analytical as well as policy perspectives. why have we been observing such a long - term trend in asset prices? what is it that made for such a significant change in the prices of real, and perhaps to a lesser extent, financial assets relative to consumer goods and services? the financialisation of economies, the growing role of stock exchanges, the privatisation of state - owned firms, the expansion of household insurance technical reserves ( due to the crisis of public pension schemes ) can go some way towards explaining the rise in the ratio of financial wealth to gdp. 27 in particular, there may be merit in considering the changes in shelter costs for owneroccupied housing as part of general consumer price changes. in this case, one should conclude that the prices of housing services went up substantially compared to other consumer goods and services. yet, in part housing expenditure is clearly of a capital - good nature. one should also conclude that house owners were able to extract substantial rent from their accumulated real estate. 28 as i observed in the july 2007 conference of the luxembourg wealth study, “ in the first case we have an issue of relevance for monetary stability, in the second for financial stability, especially as house prices have been moving faster in relatively short periods of time and the larger house values have been used as collateral in financial deals ”. conclusions : lessons from the past and challenges for the future these remarks on the bank of italy

##ffi, set in a letter to luzzatto fegiz that the main purpose of the survey was “ ascertaining the prevalent opinions on the allocation of a given income rise … between consumption and saving, after distinguishing the former into current expenses and durable goods and the latter into direct investment ( real estates and businesses ), financial assets and other savings ”. 4 for some unknown reason the bank ’ s primary role in this survey was not publicised, but it testifies to the involvement of the bank of italy in the first attempts to measure the income and the consumption behaviour of italian households. this involvement is remarkable as it reveals the early support of the bank for the use of representative probability sampling. official sample surveys were still in their infancy : they had become accepted by statistical agencies in the united states only in the 1940s with the start of the current population survey. 5 the bank ’ s position is even more significant when seen against the background of an environment which was not necessarily favourable to this statistical tool. 6 the readiness to engage in these new statistical techniques is an example of the bank ’ s attitude towards paying attention to and taking advantage of developments at the frontier of research. the survey has continued to be a source of innovation. this has happened, for instance, as regards the dissemination of its results : first, in the 1980s, with the release of anonymised micro - data to academic researchers ; then, with the participation since the 1990s in the luxembourg income study, an international cooperative project for the assembly and standardisation of income data at a household level. the integration of use and production of statistical data the bank ’ s involvement in the ( second ) doxa survey is also noteworthy since it shows that the statistical collection was conceived as closely connected with the needs of economic analysis from the outset. this is not to be taken for granted. still in 1985, zvi griliches observed that “ while economists have increased their use of surveys in recent years and have even begun designing and commissioning special purpose surveys of their own, in general, the data collection and thus the responsibility for the quality of the collected material is still largely delegated to census bureaus, survey research centers, and similar institutions, and is divorced from the direct supervision and responsibility of the analyzing team ”. 7 the history of the bank of italy ’ s shiw is not one of “ divorce ” between producers and users but the citation from einaudi ’ s speech and the subsequent information are drawn from p.