Thks @BrankoMilan for your usual food for thought! My 2 cents here as I disagree w some readings of data.From the @bancaditalia data: "everybody lose" (agree), rich lose (OK as their Y is procyclical) BUT data say "The poor lost the most" and "Y inequality increased". Why?1) https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/1264667310322786306

@BrankoMilan's figure would show the >> negative growth rate of the first 3 percentiles (not in graph to reduce noise). Lets compare "poor" vs "rich" using two groups with the same (>1) % of pop. For instance poorer and richer 10%. This would not change the main message... 2)

The poorest decile (across the household net Y distribution provided by the Bank of Italy) faced a similar decline (between 2008-16) compared to the rest of the distribution (including the median). However, using 2006 as reference year, the bottom has >> losses than others! 3)

I am aware that using 2006 cannot be done in LIS (year not available in the database) but it may be a "cleaner" exercise as labor Y already started to decline between 2006-2008. 4)

In any case, using a different definition of income (equivalized disposable income- somewhat "better" than per-capita Y needed by @BrankoMilan for his global ineq exercise), this is evident even using 2008 as a reference year. 5)

Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if very rich lose > in % terms after fin shock as their Y is highly cyclical & partly linked to the stock mkt. However, the concept of "losses" also change & we would need admin data to analyze appropriately. https://www.dropbox.com/s/itxmuliy702wc3v/M_JOEI_2018.pdf?dl=0 6)

My second main point is that @bancaditalia (Historical tables) shows Gini coefficient on equivalized disposable income (as before somewhat "better" than per-capita Y). Gini coefficient from 32.1 to 33.5 between 2006 and 2016. Definition of Y on the same data matters here. 7)

In any case, I agree with Branko that there is "no good news" here. The economic situation of Italian households is deteriorating and their total income in real term is now (and since 2012, for the first time) below 1987 levels! 8)

No original analysis so far , only plotting data from https://www.bancaditalia.it/statistiche/tematiche/indagini-famiglie-imprese/bilanci-famiglie/risultati-indagine/index.html . There would be a range of issues to discuss about the nature of the data, but the thread would not easily end. END