IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-04f30006.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Big Mac parity, income, and trade

Author

Listed:
  • Sergio Da Silva

    (Department of Economics, Federal University of Rio Grande Do Sul, and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, Brazil)

  • Guilherme Moura

    (Department of Economics, Federal University of Rio Grande Do Sul)

  • Sidney Caetano

    (Department of Economics, Federal University of Rio Grande Do Sul, and Federation of Trade Associations of Rio Grande Do Sul)

Abstract

Nontraded inputs account for the lion's share of a Big Mac price (Ong 1997, Parsley and Wei 2003). Major departures from Big Mac PPP may then be explained by the Balassa-Samuelson income differences effect, as shown e.g. by Click (1996). But it has been argued that Click''s result is not robust to changing estimation methods, sample of countries, and time period (Fujiki and Kitamura 2003). Here we address a key theoretical distinction between high and low income countries for the Balassa-Samuelson effect to be properly evaluated. Since this distinction is missing in Click''s analysis, we revisit his finding and take a sample which is distinct (in terms of both set of countries and time period) to meet Fujiki-Kitamura''s criticism. We find that distinguishing high from low income makes no harm to Click''s result. But we also find that openness to trade (viewed as a proxy for trade barriers) helps to explain departures from Big Mac PPP.

Suggested Citation

  • Sergio Da Silva & Guilherme Moura & Sidney Caetano, 2004. "Big Mac parity, income, and trade," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 6(12), pages 1-8.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-04f30006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2004/Volume6/EB-04F30006A.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2001. "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is There a Common Cause?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 339-412, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. DavidC. Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 2007. "A Prism into the PPP Puzzles: The Micro-Foundations of Big Mac Real Exchange Rates," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(523), pages 1336-1356, October.
    3. Charles Engel, 1999. "Accounting for U.S. Real Exchange Rate Changes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 507-538, June.
    4. Bela Balassa, 1964. "The Purchasing-Power Parity Doctrine: A Reappraisal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72, pages 584-584.
    5. Ong, Li Lian, 1997. "Burgernomics: the economics of the Big Mac standard," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 865-878, December.
    6. Click, Reid W., 1996. "Contrarian MacParity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 209-212, November.
    7. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    8. Yukinobu Kitamura & Hiroshi Fujiki, 2004. "The Big Mac Standard: A statistical Illustration," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 6(13), pages 1-18.
    9. David C. Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 2003. "The Micro-foundations of Big Mac Real Exchange Rates," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0306, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    10. Michael R. Pakko & Patricia S. Pollard, 1996. "For here or to go? Purchasing power parity and the Big Mac," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 78(Jan), pages 3-22.
    11. De Vries, C.G. & Leuven, K.U., 1994. "Stylized Facts of Nominal Exchange Rate Returns," Papers 94-002, Purdue University, Krannert School of Management - Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Duc Hong Vo & Anh The Vo, 2017. "Currency evaluation using a big mac index for Thailand – lessons for Vietnam," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(2), pages 999-1011.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. DavidC. Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 2007. "A Prism into the PPP Puzzles: The Micro-Foundations of Big Mac Real Exchange Rates," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(523), pages 1336-1356, October.
    2. O’Brien, Thomas J. & Ruiz de Vargas, Santiago, 2019. "Currency indexes and consistent currency misvaluation: Illustrations using Big Mac data," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 464-474.
    3. Hai Long Vo & Duc Hong Vo, 2023. "The purchasing power parity and exchange‐rate economics half a century on," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 446-479, April.
    4. David C. Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 2003. "The Micro-foundations of Big Mac Real Exchange Rates," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0306, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    5. repec:zbw:bofitp:2004_014 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Jean-Olivier Hairault & Thepthida Sopraseuth, 2008. "Fluctuations internationales et dynamique du taux de change," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(2), pages 65-91.
    7. Joe Cox, 2008. "Purchasing power parity and cultural convergence: evidence from the global video games market," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 32(3), pages 201-214, September.
    8. Michael Funke & Jörg Rahn, 2005. "Just How Undervalued is the Chinese Renminbi?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 465-489, April.
    9. Kenneth W Clements & Yihui Lan & Haiyan Liu & Long Vo, 2022. "The Icp, Ppp And Household Expenditure Patterns," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 22-18, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    10. Clements, Kenneth & Lan, Yihui & Roberts, John, 2008. "Exchange-rate economics for the resources sector," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 102-117, June.
    11. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:6:y:2007:i:16:p:1-15 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Michael Funke & Jörg Rahn, 2005. "Just How Undervalued is the Chinese Renminbi?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 465-489, April.
    13. Yihui Lan, 2001. "The Long-Run Value of Currencies: A Big Mac Perspective," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 01-17, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    14. Chien-Fu Chen & Chien-an Andy Wang & Chung-Hua Shen, 2007. "Does PPP hold for Big Mac price or consumer price index? Evidence from panel cointegration," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 6(16), pages 1-15.
    15. Michael Funke & Jorg Rahn, 2004. "By How Much Is The Chinese Renminbi Undervalued?," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2004 40, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    16. Eaton, Jonathan & Kortum, Samuel & Neiman, Brent, 2016. "Obstfeld and Rogoff׳s international macro puzzles: a quantitative assessment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 5-23.
    17. Imai, Hiroyuki, 2010. "Japan's inflation under the Bretton Woods system: How large was the Balassa-Samuelson effect?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 174-185, April.
    18. Méjean, Isabelle, 2008. "Can firms' location decisions counteract the Balassa-Samuelson effect?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 139-154, December.
    19. Jeffrey Frankel & David Parsley & Shang-Jin Wei, 2012. "Slow Pass-through Around the World: A New Import for Developing Countries?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 213-251, April.
    20. Thomas Mathä, 2009. "Regional Mc parity: do common pricing points reduce deviations from the law of one price?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(1), pages 155-166, April.
    21. Yihui Lan, 2003. "The Long-Term Behaviour of Exchange Rates, Part I: Introduction," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 03-05, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    22. Ming-Jen Chang & Chang-Ching Lin & Shou-Yung Yin, 2013. "The Behaviour of Real Exchange Rates: The Case of Japan," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 530-545, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-04f30006. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.