Measuring the Value of Micro-Enterprises
12 Pages Posted: 17 Jul 2008
Date Written: June 16, 2008
Abstract
This paper explains the strategy that the Bank of Italy has developed for estimating the net worth of nonfinancial quasi-corporations, in order to fill the gap in the national FA. This strategy is mainly based on survey data from the Bank of Italy Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), which contains questions on households' equity holdings in all types of businesses. It also makes use of banking statistics and other financial statistics. Using micro data on micro-enterprises for the estimation of macro statistics presents some difficult conceptual and practical problems. We discuss, among other things, issues of definition, the treatment of nonreporting behaviour, as well as the compatibility of estimated totals with independent macroeconomic information. According to our estimates, in 2004 the value of micro-enterprises ranged between 180-190 billions euro. Including such a value in national financial accounts has increased households' total wealth by 2-7 percent.
Keywords: financial accounts, household wealth, sample surveys
JEL Classification: C42, C49, C80
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