Micro and macro data on household wealth, income and expenditure: comparing the Spanish Survey of Household Finances (EFF) to other statistical sources

This paper assesses how magnitudes constructed from Spanish Survey of Household Finances (EFF) micro data compare with magnitudes from alternative sources, including the Financial Accounts of the Spanish Economy (FASE) and other income and consumption surveys. To do so, first we analyse the main differences among the sources and the main concepts that can be compared. For those magnitudes that are conceptually comparable, we quantify the extent to which the EFF magnitudes capture those from the other sources used. We document a high degree of conceptual and quantitative comparability. Our results show that aggregate non-financial assets and debts from the EFF are similar to the aggregated magnitudes from other sources. The composition of the financial asset portfolio held by households in aggregate terms is also similar across the sources, while the comparison for each individual financial asset category varies. In particular, listed and unlisted shares in the survey are the closest to their FASE counterparts. For income, the aggregate calculated on the basis of the EFF data is close to the aggregates calculated from several different sources. The results also show that the similarity between the EFF and other sources has improved across waves for some particular variables, for example, debt magnitudes.