Affiliations: Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), Rome, Italy
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Gabriella Donatiello, Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), Via Cesare Balbo n. 16, 00100 Rome, Italy. Tel.: +39 06 46734579; Fax: +39 06 46734773; E-mail: donatiel@istat.it
Abstract: The need of new indicators that cover cross-cutting
information on household economic well-being is among the current priorities
of the National Statistical Institutes as well as a major goal at European
level. The purpose of this paper is to apply statistical matching techniques
on two different data sources to provide joint information on household
income and consumption in Italy. We use data observed on the EU Statistics
on Income and Living Condition and the Household Budget Survey. This paper
focuses on the role of the available information in improving the matching
outputs obtainable from traditional statistical matching methods. More
precisely, rough information concerning household income, derived from the
Household Budget Survey through a suitable method, is considered. The
statistical matching methods will use this additional variable as a matching
variable that is highly correlated with one of the target variables, thereby
justifying the use of the usually neglected conditional independence
assumption. In this paper, important insights on the application of the
Renssen's weight calibration approach when matching data from complex sample
surveys are also provided. Finally an ex-ante collection of information in
SILC could enhance the application of matching techniques and improve the
accuracy of the final estimates.
Keywords: Statistical matching, integration of surveys, survey weight calibration
