Statistica Applicata - Italian Journal of Applied Statistics Vol. 24 (1) 103 1 Claudio Ceccarelli, clceccar@istat.it The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat). Received: 17 July 2013 / Accepted: 11 February 2014 Abstract. Since 2004 the European Statistics on Income and Living Condition (Eu-Silc) has been carried out every year in all the European Union member states. It has been har- monised to produce comparable estimates among the countries. The European Regula- tions suggests to calibrate on control totals of demographic variables from administrative sources. Apart from those, the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat) calibrates on estimated control totals from the Italian Labour Force Survey (LFS). This auxiliary infor- mation is strongly correlated with income but its sampling nature could have ambiguous effects on the efficiency of estimates. The aim of this paper is to show that using strongly correlated auxiliary population totals, even though survey-estimated, can improve the efficiency of estimates in It-Silc. Keywords: Calibration estimator, Sampling error, Survey-estimated control totals, It- Silc. 1. INTRODUCTION Since 2004 the European Statistics on Income and Living Condition (Eu-Silc) has been replacing the European Community Household Panel Survey (ECHP). The Eu-Silc’s aim is equivalent to the ECHP’s one, that is to be the refer- ence source for income distribution, living conditions and social exclusion at Eu- INCREASING THE ACCURACY OF IT-SILC ESTIMATES THROUGH THE USE OF AUXILIARY INFORMATION FROM LABOUR FORCE SURVEY Claudio Ceccarelli 1 Department for Environmental and Social Statistics, National Institute of Statistic, Italy Alessio Guandalini Department of Statistical Sciences, University “La Sapienza”, Italy