To Misreport or not to Report? The Case of the Italian Survey on Household Income and Wealth
To Misreport or not to Report? The Case of the Italian Survey on Household Income and Wealth

Summary/Abstract: The objective of the paper is to adjust for the bias due to unit nonresponse and measurement error in survey estimates of total household financial wealth. Sample surveys are a useful source of information on household wealth. Yet, survey estimates are affected by nonsampling errors. In particular, when it comes to household wealth, unit nonresponse and measurement error can severely bias the estimates. Using the Italian Survey on Household Income and Wealth, we exploit the available auxiliary information in order to assess the magnitude of such a bias. We find evidence that for this kind of surveys, nonsampling errors are a major issue to deal with, possibly more serious than sampling errors. Moreover, in the case of SHIW the potential bias due to measurement error seems to outweigh by far that induced by nonresponse.

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