There’s a three-letter abbreviation that economists have started pronouncing with the energy of a four-letter word: “O.E.R.”It stands for owner’s equivalent rent, and it has been used to measure American housing inflation since the 1980s.
As its name suggests, it uses a combination of surveys and market data to estimate how much it would cost homeowners to rent the house they live in.
But three years into America’s price pop, it has become almost cliché for economists to hate on the housing measure.
The most intense haters insist that it is giving a false impression about where inflation stands.
“It’s just not adding anything to our understanding of inflation,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics and a frequent adviser to the Biden administration.
Persons:
There’s, “ It’s, ”, Mark Zandi, Biden, Zandi, grousing, “
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New York Times