Purchasing power

About: Purchasing power is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2714 publications have been published within this topic receiving 36866 citations. The topic is also known as: adjusted for inflation.

New insights into the structure of the world economy

Abstract: The United Nations' newly completed study of purchasing power parities covering 34 countries varied in region, income level, and form of economic organization shows the systematic differences between the usual view of the structure of the world economy arising out of international comparisons based upon foreign exchange rate conversions and the structure one sees when actual prices are available. The real per capita GDP of developing countries is understated relative to developed countries when exchange rates are used in converting countries' national income accounts to a common currency, with the degree of understatement for any two countries being inversely related to the per capita income difference between them. The reason for this is that relative prices in the non-traded goods sector are lower relative to traded goods prices in low income countries. The systematic pattern observed in the 1975 data of the 34 countries has been extrapolated over time and space to get estimates of GDP for other years and countries. In the absence of detailed price data, the real shares of final expenditures devoted to particular components of the total can only be estimated as the proportion of own currency total expenditure devoted to the components. The observed differences in the pattern of prices of poor countries relative to rich for different components makes this clearly wrong for international comparisons, and in systematic ways. For example, (i) the relative price of services compared with commodities in poor countries is lower than in rich; so the apparent tendency of the share of services to rise as a country's income rises disappears when real quantities are considered; similarly, (ii) the relative price of capital goods is greater in poor countries compared with rich ones, so the difference in investment ratios out of GDP between rich and poor countries is understated.

Perspectivas para o mercado de trabalho após o crescimento com inclusão social

Abstract: The current economic picture is one of declining GDP, annual inflation of 10% and threats to the employment level and to the purchasing power of labor income. When monitoring the evolution of employment levels and labor income, it is important to take into account what happened in 2003-2013 in order to assess the particularities of an eventual reversal of the labor market's recent achievements in social inclusion. In this context, the article outlines the changes that have occurred in Brazil's labor market, using data from the National Survey by Household Sampling (PNAD) for 2004 and 2013. The analysis starts out by examining the country's economic performance and the situation of the economically active population. It then highlights the main changes in the job structure and in income, with emphasis on formal employment.

Trade Policy and Democracy for Development in Central African Countries

Abstract: This article shows that trade policy and democracy positively affect economic development. A panel of 11 Central Africa economies with 176 observations from 1995 to 2010 is used to econometrically test this hypothesis. The use of Generalised Least Squares (GLS) shows that there is a link between economic development, captured using Human Development Indicators (HDI), democracy, imports, exports, inflation and regional integration. Inflation and exports negatively affect the well-being of the population. An increase in the inflation rate causes a reduction in purchasing power. An increase in the exports of commodities tends to decrease the quantity of goods available for the country of origin. Imports have a positive effect on HDI probably because this variable tends to increase the quantity of goods available. Imports and democracy have a positive effect on the level of development in Central African countries. The findings are important to policy makers Central Africa who seek to increase trade within, between and with other democratic countries.

Purchasing power parities of currencies: Recent advances in methods and applications

Abstract: Contents: Foreword PART I: INTRODUCTION Introduction D.S. Prasada Rao 2. The Compilation of Purchasing Power Parities: The Eurostat-OECD Purchasing Power Parity Programme David Roberts PART II: SYSTEM METHODS FOR PPP COMPUTATION 3. Aggregation Methods in International Comparisons: An Evaluation Bert Balk 4. Generalised Elteto-Koves-Szulc and Country-Product-Dummy Methods for International Comparisons D.S. Prasada Rao 5. True International Income Comparisons Correcting for Substitution Bias Steve Dowrick 6. Additivity, Matrix Consistency and a New Method for International Comparisons of Real Income and Purchasing Power Parities Itsuo Sakuma, D.S. Prasada Rao and Yoshimasa Kurabayashi 7. Implicit Data Structures and Properties of Selected Additive Indices James Cuthbert PART III: METHODS FOR SPATIAL LINKING AND ANALYSIS OF PRICE STRUCTURES 8. Similarity Indexes and Criteria for Spatial Linking Erwin Diewert 9. Comparing Per Capita Income Levels across Countries using Spanning Trees: Robustness, Prior Restrictions, Hybrids and Hierarchies Robert Hill 10. Chaining Methods for International Real Product and Purchasing Power Comparisons: Issues and Alternatives Bettina Aten and Alan Heston 11. Aggregation Methods based on Structural International Prices Sergey Sergeev PART IV: APPLICATIONS 12. Purchasing Power Parities and their Policy Relevance Michael Ward 13. Purchasing Power Parity Adjustments for Productivity Level Comparisons Bart van Ark and Marcel Timmer 14. PPPs and the Price Competitiveness of International Tourism Destinations Larry Dwyer, Peter Forsyth and D.S. Prasada Rao