Subsequent to monetary union, harmonized consumer prices can be used as the best available measure of inflation in the Euro area. However, as it now stands, the harmonized measures do not contain a broad coverage of consumer services. Most notably, the costs of owner-occupied housing -- a sizable share of consumer expenditures -- are excluded from the harmonized indexes.
In the United States, for example, the CPI calculated on this harmonized basis would have increased three or four tenths of a percentage point more slowly than the published CPI, on average, over the past few years, largely because prices of owner-occupied housing have been rising more rapidly than the other components.