Book excerpt: This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Rent, paid either to a landlord or to oneself as an owner-occupant, has a large weight in the CPI and in the personal consumption expenditures deflator. The authors describe how the Bureau of Labor Stat. (BLS) estimates tenant rent and owners¿ equivalent rent. They then estimate alternative inflation rates for tenant rent and owners¿ equivalent rent based on Amer. Housing Survey data, following BLS methodology as closely as possible. The authors¿ alternative tenant rent inflation series is generally consistent with the corresponding BLS series. However, their alternative owners¿ equivalent rent inflation series is consistently lower than the corresponding BLS series by an amount large enough to have a significant effect on the overall inflation rate.