The Italian National Accounts were substantially revised in 1985 and official estimates released since then only cover the years since 1970 for most of the variables of interest in a study on saving. As part of the project that has led to this volume, a major reconstruction of the data has been undertaken. Analytical income accounts from 1970 onwards and aggregate time series since 1951 have been constructed by Giuseppe Marotta and Patrizia Pagliano and by Patrizia Pagliano and Nicola Rossi in the two essays published in “Income and Saving in Italy: A Reconstruction”, Temi di discussione 169, Banca d'Italia, June 1992.

These data have been used in the time series estimates presented in Chapter 2 of this book and, after being updated to match the new release of official statistics by Istat, to produce the income and consumption flows, general government accounts, wealth measures and saving rates presented in the tables which follow. Social security wealth has been estimated by Luca Beltrametti; for the methodology followed see Appendix B to the working paper version of Chapter 2 (N. Rossi and I. Visco, “Private Saving and Government Deficit in Italy (1951–1990)”, Temi di discussione 178, Banca d'Italia, October 1992).