It is undisputed that the HICP should really include this component. Many national consumer price indices incorporate it, and give it some weight – in the United States, for instance, it makes up 24% of the index and it contributes a sizeable 10% to the German index. Its inclusion may consequently impact the level of the measured inﬂation rate.
ECB experts have calculated that, in the past, the inclusion of such a component would have inﬂuenced the headline rate by up to 0.2 percentage point in individual quarters. [17] In the long term, however, I expect that average HICP inﬂation would not change much. The reasons why owner-occupied housing is not included in the HICP are of a technical and methodological nature.