IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pen/papers/21-013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Price Levels, Size, Distribution and Growth of the World Economy: Insights from recent International Comparisons of Prices and Real Product

Author

Listed:
  • Alan Heston

    (University of Pennsylvania)

  • D.S. Prasada Rao

    (The University of Queensland)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the recently released macroeconomic aggregate data from the International Comparison Program (ICP) for the years 2011 and 2017 compiled using comparable and consistent survey methods and aggregation procedures. Focusing on the size of the real world economy, in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, the paper presents estimates of global and regional growth, inflation and exchange rate effects over the period 2011 and 2017. The approach used here has implications for the regular compilation and dissemination of global growth and inflation statistics by organizations like the International Monetary Fund. Growth performance analysis is supplemented with estimates of global and regional inequality. The question about the largest economy is answered using real GDP estimates in PPP terms from the ICP with the conclusion that China and USA were almost at the same level in 2017. Based on the projections to 2019 from the Penn World Table 10.0 and the COVID affected growth rates of these economies in 2020 published by the IMF suggest that China is currently the biggest economy in PPP terms. The paper revisits Balassa and Samuelson in examining a long standing question of interest to economists since the first round of ICP in 1970, namely what determines the price levels measured as the ratio of PPP to exchange rates in different countries. Developing appropriate analytical tools and using macroeconomic aggregate data from the 1975, 2011 and 2017 rounds of the ICP, the paper examines evolution of economic structures of countries in terms of price similarity, the breakdown of services and commodities, and the global price structures. The paper in conclusion touches on the challenges due to COVID for international macroeconomic comparisons in the short to immediate term faced by national and international statistical agencies conducting these exercises.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan Heston & D.S. Prasada Rao, 2021. "Price Levels, Size, Distribution and Growth of the World Economy: Insights from recent International Comparisons of Prices and Real Product," PIER Working Paper Archive 21-013, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    • Handle: RePEc:pen:papers:21-013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/filevault/21-013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Branko Milanovic, 2002. "True World Income Distribution, 1988 and 1993: First Calculation Based on Household Surveys Alone," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 51-92, January.
    2. Long Hai Vo, 2021. "Understanding International Price and Consumption Disparities," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 21-01, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    3. Kravis, Irving B & Lipsey, Robert E, 1988. "National Price Levels and the Prices of Tradables and Nontradables," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 474-478, May.
    4. Heston, Alan & Nuxoll, Daniel A & Summers, Robert, 1994. "The Differential-Productivity Hypothesis and Purchasing-Power Parties: Some New Evidence," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(3), pages 227-243, October.
    5. Amartya Sen, 1976. "Real National Income," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 43(1), pages 19-39.
    6. Robert Inklaar & D. S. Prasada Rao, 2017. "Cross-Country Income Levels over Time: Did the Developing World Suddenly Become Much Richer?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 265-290, January.
    7. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2010. "The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1577-1625.
    8. Angus Deaton & Bettina Aten, 2017. "Trying to Understand the PPPs in ICP 2011: Why Are the Results So Different?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 243-264, January.
    9. Anonymous, 1962. "International Monetary Fund," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 230-231, January.
    10. Angus Deaton & Alan Heston, 2010. "Understanding PPPs and PPP-Based National Accounts," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 1-35, October.
    11. Anonymous, 1962. "International Monetary Fund," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(4), pages 876-878, October.
    12. Bhagwati, Jagdish N, 1984. "Why Are Services Cheaper in the Poor Countries?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(374), pages 279-286, June.
    13. Aziz Atamanov & Christoph Lakner & Daniel Gerszon Mahler & Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah & Judy Yang, 2020. "The Effect of New PPP Estimates on Global Poverty: A First Look," Global Poverty Monitoring Technical Note Series 12, The World Bank.
    14. repec:pri:rpdevs:deaton_price_indexes_inequality_and_the_measurement_of_world_poverty_aer. is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Kravis, Irving B., 1981. "An approximation of the relative real per capita GDP of the People's Republic of China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 60-78, March.
    16. Zhang, Qi, 2017. "The Balassa–Samuelson relationship: services, manufacturing and product quality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68705, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Robert C. Feenstra & Hong Ma & J. Peter Neary & D.S. Prasada Rao, 2013. "Who Shrunk China? Puzzles in the Measurement of Real GDP," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(12), pages 1100-1129, December.
    18. Angus Deaton, 2010. "Price Indexes, Inequality, and the Measurement of World Poverty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 5-34, March.
    19. repec:pri:rpdevs:presidential%20address%2017january%202010%20all.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Anonymous, 1962. "International Monetary Fund," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 619-631, July.
    21. Bela Balassa, 1964. "The Purchasing-Power Parity Doctrine: A Reappraisal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72, pages 584-584.
    22. D. S.P. Rao & Bart van Ark (ed.), 2013. "World Economic Performance," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13753.
    23. Robert C. Feenstra & Mingzhi Xu & Alexis Antoniades, 2017. "What is the Price of Tea in China? Towards the Relative Cost of Living in Chinese and U.S. Cities," NBER Working Papers 23161, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Zhang, Qi, 2017. "The Balassa–Samuelson relationship: Services, manufacturing and product quality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 55-82.
    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. Abe, Naohito & Rao, D.S. Prasada, 2022. "Towards a simplified approach to international price comparisons: A case for the Multilateral Walsh Index," RCESR Discussion Paper Series DP22-1, Research Center for Economic and Social Risks, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.

    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. Long Hai Vo, 2023. "Understanding International Price and Consumption Disparities," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(2), pages 443-473, June.
    2. Hassan, Fadi, 2016. "The price of development: The Penn–Balassa–Samuelson effect revisited," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 291-309.
    3. Ravallion, Martin, 2018. "An exploration of the changes in the international comparison program’s global economic landscape," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 201-216.
    4. Robert Inklaar & D. S. Prasada Rao, 2017. "Cross-Country Income Levels over Time: Did the Developing World Suddenly Become Much Richer?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 265-290, January.
    5. Facundo Alvaredo & Leonardo Gasparini, 2013. "Recent Trends in Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0151, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    6. Martin Ravallion, 2016. "Toward better global poverty measures," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(2), pages 227-248, June.
    7. Martin Ravallion, 2014. "An Exploration of the International Comparison Program's New Global Economic Landscape," NBER Working Papers 20338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Yin‐Wong Cheung & Eiji Fujii, 2014. "Exchange Rate Misalignment Estimates—Sources Of Differences," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 91-121, March.
    9. Balk, Bert M. & Rambaldi, Alicia N. & Rao, D. S. Prasada, 2022. "Macro-Economic Measures For A Globalized World: Global Growth And Inflation," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 314-360, March.
    10. Frenkel, Jacob A. & Mussa, Michael L., 1985. "Asset markets, exchange rates and the balance of payments," Handbook of International Economics, in: R. W. Jones & P. B. Kenen (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 14, pages 679-747, Elsevier.
    11. Maurice Obstfeld, 1995. "Intenational Currency Experience: New Lessons and Lessons Relearned," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 119-220.
    12. Phillip Edmund Metaxas & Ernst Juerg Weber, 2016. "An Australian Contribution to International Trade Theory: The Dependent Economy Model," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 92(298), pages 464-497, September.
    13. Stahler Kevin & Subramanian Arvind, 2014. "Versailles Redux? Eurozone Competitiveness in a Dynamic Balassa-Samuelson-Penn Framework," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 129-176, December.
    14. Abe, Naohito & Rao, D.S. Prasada, 2022. "Towards a simplified approach to international price comparisons: A case for the Multilateral Walsh Index," RCESR Discussion Paper Series DP22-1, Research Center for Economic and Social Risks, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    15. Ali Hosseiny, 2015. "Violation of Invariance of Measurement for GDP Growth Rate and its Consequences," Papers 1507.04848, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2016.
    16. Ricardo Faria, Joao & Leon-Ledesma, Miguel, 2003. "Testing the Balassa-Samuelson effect: Implications for growth and the PPP," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 241-253, June.
    17. Kowalski, Tadeusz, 2013. "Globalization and Transformation in Central European Countries: The Case of Poland," MPRA Paper 59306, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Branko Milanovic, 2012. "Global inequality recalculated and updated: the effect of new PPP estimates on global inequality and 2005 estimates," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(1), pages 1-18, March.
    19. Ingvild Almas & Ashild Johnsen, 2018. "The cost of a growth miracle - reassessing price and poverty trends in China," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 239-264, October.
    20. Inklaar, Robert & de Jong, Harmen & Bolt, Jutta & van Zanden, Jan, 2018. "Rebasing 'Maddison': new income comparisons and the shape of long-run economic development," GGDC Research Memorandum GD-174, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

    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:pen:papers:21-013. 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: Administrator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.html .

    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.