Currency values, prices, consumption and incomes are at the heart of the economic performance of all countries. In order to make a meaningful comparison between one economy and another, economists routinely make use of purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates, but while PPP rates are widely used and well understood, they take a lot of effort to produce and suffer from publication delays. Currencies, Commodities and Consumption analyses the strengths and weaknesses of two alternatives to PPP. Firstly, the so-called Big Mac Index, which uses hamburger prices as a standard of measurement, and second, a less well known technique which infers incomes across countries based on the proportion of consumption devoted to food. Kenneth W. Clements uses international macroeconomics, microeconomic theory and econometrics to provide researchers and policy makers with insights into alternatives to PPP rates and make sense of the ongoing instability of exchange rates and commodity prices.
Currency values, prices, consumption and incomes are at the heart of the economic performance of all countries. In order to make a meaningful comparison between one economy and another, economists routinely make use of purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates, but while PPP rates are widely used and well understood, they take a lot of effort to produce and suffer from publication delays. Currencies, Commodities and Consumption analyses the strengths and weaknesses of two alternatives to PPP. Firstly, the so-called Big Mac Index, which uses hamburger prices as a standard of measurement, and second, a less well known technique which infers incomes across countries based on the proportion of consumption devoted to food. Kenneth W. Clements uses international macroeconomics, microeconomic theory and econometrics to provide researchers and policy makers with insights into alternatives to PPP rates and make sense of the ongoing instability of exchange rates and commodity prices.
This book extends research in consumption economics by identifying similarities and differences in consumption patterns in a large number of countries, both developed and less developed. Its approach is to carefully analyze a large body of data from a highly diverse group of countries to determine the extent to which a simple economic framework can be used to understand and explain consumer behavior. It uses data from more than 40 countries which range from the most affluent to the poorest in the world. The book pays particular attention to the consumption of food and to new simulation techniques applied to systems of demand equations.
The study of consumer demand is important for a number of reasons. First, as total consumption absorbs more than 70 percent of GDP in most countries, it is the largest of the macroeconomic aggregates, thus having great significance for the state of the economy as a whole and business conditions. Second, the pattern of consumption contains a wealth of useful information regarding economic welfare and living standards. Closely allied to this is that as consumption (both current and future) is the ultimate objective of all economic activity and economic systems (mercantilists notwithstanding), in a fundamental sense consumption patterns are an objective way of measuring and assessing economic performance. Finally, an understanding of the price-responsiveness of consumption is of crucial importance for a host of microeconomic policy issues including public-utility pricing, the measurement of distortions, optimal taxation and the treatment of externalities. The analysis of consumer demand is one of the major successes of economics as it represents the near perfect marriage of theory and econometrics, a situation almost unparalleled in any other field of economics. This field has attracted a lot of attention since the introduction of the linear expenditure system and its application to British data by Stone (1954), followed by the differential demand system of Barten (1964) and Theil (1965, 1975176, 1980) and developments thereafter.
This title, first published in 1984, is a contribution to applied international trade theory. The author explores the specification and estimation of a multisector general equilibrium model of the open economy. The model is formulated with the aim of assessing empirically the effects of three key policy variables on trade flows, domestic prices, and the trade balance. The policy variables with which the author is concerned are the rate of growth of the stock of domestic credit, commercial policy, as represented by tariffs, and, finally, the exchange rate. This title will be of interest to students of economics.
Currency values, prices, consumption and incomes are at the heart of the economic performance of all countries. In order to make a meaningful comparison between one economy and another, economists routinely make use of purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates, but while PPP rates are widely used and well understood, they take a lot of effort to produce and suffer from publication delays. Currencies, Commodities and Consumption analyses the strengths and weaknesses of two alternatives to PPP. Firstly, the so-called Big Mac Index, which uses hamburger prices as a standard of measurement, and second, a less well known technique which infers incomes across countries based on the proportion of consumption devoted to food. Kenneth W. Clements uses international macroeconomics, microeconomic theory and econometrics to provide researchers and policy makers with insights into alternatives to PPP rates and make sense of the ongoing instability of exchange rates and commodity prices.
Western Australia is one of the world's great energy and mineral provinces, and much of its economic history has been shaped by the interaction between mineral-industry developments and government policy. A central feature of this experience has been avoidance of market mechanisms, and excessive reliance on detailed regulation to achieve policy goals. With decisions about future energy policy imminent, The Great Energy Debate provides a timely analysis of the importance of energy costs to the whole Western Australian economy. It lays down benchmarks against which policy proposals can be measured, and raises questions such as: How much competition (and regulation) should there be in the electricity industry to promote the future development of the State? What are the linkages between large mineral, and mineral-processing projects and the rest of the State's economy? How can Western Australia have a competitive and cost-effective energy sector? The Great Energy Debate not only examines future energy projects, but also makes some provocative proposals for the reform of energy policy in Western Australia.
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