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Explaining Product Price Differences Across Countries

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Author Info
Robert E. Lipsey
Birgitta Swedenborg

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Abstract

A substantial part of international differences in prices of individual products, both goods and services, can be explained by differences in per capita income, wage compression, or low wage dispersion among low-wage workers, and short-term exchange rate fluctuations. Higher per capita income is associated with higher prices and higher wage dispersion with lower prices. The effects of higher income and wage dispersion are moderated for the more tradable products. The effects of wage dispersion, on the other hand, are magnified for the more labor-intensive products, particularly low-skill services. The differences in prices across countries are reflected in differences in the composition of consumption. Countries in which prices of labor-intensive services are very high, such as the Nordic countries, consume much less of them. For some services, the shares of GDP consumed in high-price countries are less than 20 percent of the shares in low-price countries. Since these are services of very low tradability, the low consumption levels of these services imply low employment in them.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13239.

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Date of creation: Jul 2007
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13239

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

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  1. Olivier Blanchard & Francesco Giavazzi, 2003. "Macroeconomic Effects Of Regulation And Deregulation In Goods And Labor Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 118(3), pages 879-907, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Koeniger, Winfried & Leonardi, Marco & Nunziata, Luca, 2004. "Labour Market Institutions and Wage Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1291, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  3. Sanyal, Kalyan K & Jones, Ronald W, 1982. "The Theory of Trade in Middle Products," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 16-31, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Bhagwati, Jagdish N, 1984. "Why Are Services Cheaper in the Poor Countries?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(374), pages 279-86, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Freeman, Richard & Schettkat, Ronald, 2001. "Skill Compression, Wage Differentials, and Employment: Germany vs the US," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 582-603, July.
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  6. Giuseppe Bertola & Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2001. "Comparative Analysis of Labor Market Outcomes: Lessons for the US from International Long-Run Evidence," NBER Working Papers 8526, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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