Development of OECD Guidelines for Micro Statistics on Household Wealth Bindi Kindermann A/g Director Living Conditions

Outline of presentation  Wealth and wellbeing  Micro data availability  About the OECD initiative  Key outcomes  Timelines and future directions

Wealth and wellbeing •Essential component of people’s consumption possibilities and material conditions. •Currently, some important analytical needs for macro and micro level information are not satisfied

Household net financial wealth per capita 2009, US dollars at 2000 PPPs AUS: 30% of total wealth

Micro data availability •Available for 26 countries (at least) •Luxembourg Wealth Study  12 countries: Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, UK, US •Euro area Household Finance and Consumption Survey  17 countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain

Current limitations Increasing number of countries entering this measurement space … ×there are a range of definitional and design differences that impact comparability across datasets (e.g. over time, between countries, between micro & macro data) ×there are no agreed standards to underpin these developments

About the OECD initiative •Develop guidelines for micro level household wealth statistics •Establish an international framework for measurement and analysis of household income, consumption and wealth statistics at the micro level

Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report  Recommendation 3: Consider income and consumption jointly with wealth  Recommendation 4: Give more prominence to the distribution of income, consumption and wealth

Income and Wealth, Australia

Key outcomes  Agreed concepts, definitions and classifications  contribute to more accurate, more complete and more internationally comparable data  Alignment, where possible to the SNA08  to facilitate integrated analysis  Practical guidance on measurement, quality assurance, analysis and dissemination

Timelines & future directions  Final drafts circulated for consultation with OECD Committee on Statistics member countries late early 2013, and then published in first half 2013  The OECD Expert Group will recommend: i.the reports be ‘road tested’, and that, in due course, they be refreshed and adopted as international statistical standards ii.better use of existing information to inform policy

Further information  Marco Mira d’Ercole  Bindi Kindermann  Nicolas Ruiz