Valeria Negri

The aim of this paper is to estimate the changeover's inflationary impact in Italy and Milan and make an assessment of the official methodology used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). The changeover's inflationary impact has been estimated in 0.6-0.7 percentage points in Italy, with a lag distributed over a period longer than initially expected. We show diat the tirning and methodology of the survey carried out by the ISTAT has an impact on the lag distnbution and the accuracy of the short mn inflation measurement. We estimate that the prices collected monthly at the local leve1 weight only for about half of the basket value. In modern economies firms offer an increasing wider variety of goods and services which call for a wider coverage of prices collected. We draw the attention on the weight for housing expemes: 9.3 percent in Italy and 8.5 in Milan.