Including Owner-Occupied Housing Costs in the HICP: Some Technical and Policy Remarks

We discuss the full inclusion of the owner-occupied housing costs (OOHCs) in the EU's harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP). We briefly review the main methods used for including these costs into consumer price indices, and in particular the reasons why the EU authorities prefer to adopt the net acquisitions approach rather than the rent equivalence approach, as other major countries did. We also argue that in the current scenario an acceleration of the EU's roadmap towards a full inclusion of OOHCs in the HICP would be desirable.