Neary, J. P. (1997) True multilateral indexes for international comparisons of purchasing power and real income. CEPDP, 329. Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK. ISBN 075300075X
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Abstract
I consider the problem of choosing index numbers of purchasing power and real income for international comparisons. I show that the desirable properties of methods based on the Fisher "Ideal" index do not extend to multilateral comparisons, except when tastes are homothetic. By contrast, the Geary method, which underlies the Penn World Tables, provides an approximation to a set of "true" exchange rate indexes which have many desirable properties. In particular, if demands exhibit generalized linearity, the true indexes measure real incomes relative to a hypothetical country whose income is an appropriate average of individual countries'' incomes.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Discussion Paper) |
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| Official URL: | http://cep.lse.ac.uk |
| Additional Information: | © 1997 J. P. Neary |
| Library of Congress subject classification: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory |
| Sets: | Collections > Economists Online Research centres and groups > Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) |
| Rights: | http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/rights/LSERO.htm |
| Identification Number: | 329 |
| URL: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/20355/ |
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