Business survey indicators represent an important tool in economic analysis and forecasting practices. While there is wide consensus on the coincident properties of such data, there is mixed evidence on their ability to predict macroeconomic developments in the short term. In this study we...

In a choice model of risky assets the role of risk aversion is analyzed. The measure of risk preference comes from a direct subjective survey question and it is considered as an imperfect information about the true risk attitude of investors. Misclassification between the true and the observed...

Business investment is a very important variable for short- and medium-term economic analysis, but it is volatile and difficult to predict. Qualitative business survey data are widely used to provide indicators of economic activity ahead of the publication of official data. Traditional...

This paper examines the relationship between inequality and happiness through the lens of heterogeneous values, beliefs and inclinations. Drawing upon opinion data from the European Social Survey for twenty-three countries, we find that individual views on a wide range of themes can be...

The paper offers a broad overview of the topics addressed during the Bank of Italy's conference on Household wealth in Italy held in Perugia (Italy) in 2007. It recalls the principal reasons for central bank involvement in the compilation of statistics on wealth, looks at the Bank of Italy's...

This paper firstly aims to evaluate the incidence of measurement error affecting the main variables collected in surveys on consumption. The assessment is carried out on two Tanzania surveys which provide both diary and panel data. Diary data can be employed to obtain reliability coefficients...