Measures of Workers

1
Measures of Workers Remittances in Italy

• Rita Cappariello
• Banca d'Italia - Research Department
• Balance of payments Unit

2
Institutional aspects
3
Banca dItaliaUfficio Italiano dei Cambi
BANCA DITALIA
UFFICIO ITALIANO DEI CAMBI
Statistics Department
Credit System Information Department
Research Department
Nonbank data input Division
Nonbank data output Division
Statistics Division
Securities Database and Coding System (ISIN)
Division
Banks Stock Data
MFIs data output, International banking and
BOP/IIP compilation Division
BOP Unit
MFI data input Unit
Credit System Statistics Committee
4
Type of collection system

• Statistics based on data reported by banks
  through the International Transaction Reporting
  System (ITRS) to the UIC.
• Banks are required to report transactions
  performed for their own account and for accounts
  of their customers (data transmitted within the
  framework of the Matrice Valutaria or MV)
• Non-banks are required to report their own
  cross-border transactions, directly or through
  the resident banks (data transmitted within the
  framework of the Comunicazione Valutaria
  Statistica or CVS)
• In accordance with the rules in effect from
  January 2002 for the European Monetary Union
  countries, the minimum threshold for these flows
  to be recorded is 12.500 euro.

5
Compensation of employees

• This item covers gross earnings of employees for
  work performed for residents of other economies,
  including employers' contributions to social
  security schemes.
• The data are based on receipts and payments
  related to wages and salaries and on
  expenditures by foreign embassies in Italy or
  Italian embassies abroad and are obtained mainly
  from the cross border transaction reports.
• These data are supplemented with estimates based
  on information from the OECD on the tax and
  social security system in member countries.
• Further adjustments are made, on the credit side
  only, since an estimated proportion of
  remittances from abroad is attributed to wages
  and salaries earned by Italian employees.

6
Workers remittances

• The data are collected from the cross border
  transaction reports.
• On the credit side a portion of flows recorded as
  remittances is allocated to compensation of
  employees.

7
Magnitude of flows
8
The opinion of a charitable organisation The
actual magnitude of these flows are likely to be
higher than the ones recorded by the balance of
payments statistics.According to the Caritas
the flows of workers remittances are about twice
the ones reported by the official data because of
an extensive use of informal channels of
transfer (e.g. Money transfer companies).The
use of some estimation methods based on surveys
of immigrant households seems to confirm this
preposition.
9
ConclusionsThresholds too high? Improve
the information on informal channels?Use
estimation methods from other sources?