
Code and data for The Economist's Big Mac index - mkirchner
https://github.com/TheEconomist/big-mac-data
======
yboris
I bit of a shameless plug for my project: [https://income-
inequality.info/](https://income-inequality.info/)

Includes all the processing and graph generation code (can even run notebook
online): [https://github.com/whyboris/Global-Income-
Distribution](https://github.com/whyboris/Global-Income-Distribution)

The world is shockingly unequal in terms of income (and other resources). I
love that others are trying to visualize it (e.g.
[http://www.globalrichlist.com/](http://www.globalrichlist.com/) and
[https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-
am-i/](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-am-i/) )

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panarky
This is the way data journalism should be done, kudos!

 _> exchange rates are from Thomson Reuters_

Sorry to say I'm cynical enough to be surprised that they're allowed to
republish this data.

~~~
hnews_account_1
Daily currency and stock data is practically free in most cases. Anyway, this
is historical data and not real time. I don't think Reuters gives a fuck
beyond your payment for downloading the data in the first place.

Now if you piped the real time API to somewhere else for a broadcast / simple
multicast, Reuters may take issue with it.

~~~
wyxuan
Yeah almost every brokerage provides access to historical exchange rates

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crusty511
Interesting that [https://www.economist.com/news/2020/01/15/the-big-mac-
index](https://www.economist.com/news/2020/01/15/the-big-mac-index) does not
render with Privacy Badger + uBlockOrigin

~~~
dekken_
seems to for me

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lowdose
What would be a reason for irregular intervals of price registration? Could it
be that the pricing changed by McDonalds at this interval and wouldn't the
dataset be more complete to include the months in which the price of the Big
Mac didn't change?

2000-04-01 2001-04-01 2002-04-01 2003-04-01 2004-05-01 2005-06-01 2006-01-01
2006-05-01 2007-01-01 2007-06-01 2008-06-01 2009-07-01 2010-01-01 2010-07-01
2011-07-01 2012-01-01 2012-07-01 2013-01-01 2013-07-01 2014-01-01 2014-07-01
2015-01-01 2015-07-01 2016-01-01 2016-07-01 2017-01-01 2017-07-01 2018-01-01
2018-07-01 2019-01-01 2019-07-09 2020-01-14

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giorgioz
I did use the Big Mac Index to convert the pricing of my SaaS in more than 40
currencies. I did the math in a simple Excel spreadsheet at the time. Will try
the data from this repo next time I'll redo the pricing!

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p1necone
I suspect the Big Mac index is not super informative in a lot of wealthier
areas where the cost of shelter is growing _much_ faster than the cost of
food.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I think I'm general inflation indexes are now completely impossible to
generalize because (a) inflation has been _enormous_ in some locales and some
sectors but (b) the relative price of goods is now _so_ dependent on location.

That is, like you say, in a major city I'd expect a Big Mac to be only
slightly more expensive, but I'd expect housing to be astronomical. But
outside of probably like 10-15 major metros I'd expect housing to be flat if
not negative in huge swaths of the US.

~~~
ghaff
To be at all useful, an inflation index almost has to ignore, say, the rental
cost of a 1 BR apartment in the downtown or other sought after area of a
relative handful of major cities. After all, in many cases, the same dynamics
often don't apply even a 60-90 minute drive away.

On the other hand, the fact that Big Macs and gallons of milk (or houses in
Flint Michigan) haven't gone up much in price is more or less irrelevant to
the young couple renting in Manhattan and looking for child care.

~~~
p1necone
Those few major cities make up a sizeable portion of the population though,
you can't just remove them from the data and call it a day. Perhaps the
solution is splitting it into a "high density inflation index" and "low
density inflation index".

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tomasfarias
I see Argentina's exchange rate is about 60 Pesos per 1 Dollar. While that's
not false, the government recently imposed a 30% tax to all foreign currency
purchases. So while the exchange rate is 60 the final price you actually pay
is 80.

This is assuming you can even buy foreign currency in the first place; people
are limited to 200 USD per month.

~~~
rchaud
Things like this is why I'm wary of looking too deeply into "data
infographics", especially if they're related to economic statistics. The
numbers alone rarely tell the whole story. They're still good for getting the
"MBA-level" 30k ft view.

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francisofascii
Github has a helpful CSV file grid view that I never noticed before.
[https://github.com/TheEconomist/big-mac-
data/blob/master/sou...](https://github.com/TheEconomist/big-mac-
data/blob/master/source-data/big-mac-source-data.csv)

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masayoshis_son
The Big Mac Index is catchy but not particularly informative. I've found this
crowdsourced comparison to provide much more insight:
[https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/)

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dontdoitpls
Consumer pricing is the last to get hit with inflation.

Why do people use CPI instead of labor, housing, or stock prices to gauge
inflation?

On a similar note, why would anyone trust the federal reserve's numbers given
how the federal reserve has lied in the past?

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bhl
CPI is computed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not the Federal Reserve. As
for why labor, housing, and stock prices aren’t included in the CPI, I would
guess because: labor is sticky and are only indirectly related to consumption
via pricing, housing is a durable good (people don’t buy it week to week nor
does rent change with such frequency), and stock prices don’t affect
consumption.

You could make the argument that a better inflation indicator could take these
into account, but it wouldn’t be the CPI then.

~~~
opo
>...housing is a durable good (people don’t buy it week to week nor does rent
change with such frequency),

Rent (and "owner occupied rents") are a part of the bundle used in calculating
the CPI.

The owner occupied rent is a calculation of what the rent would be if the
owner had paid rent on the house they own. For some background on this:

[https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/research-and-
data/pu...](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/research-and-
data/publications/working-papers/2004/wp04-22.pdf)

