Measuring the Cost of Living in Mexico and the United Statest

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Argente, David; Hsieh, Chang-tai; Lee, Munseob
• 署名单位: Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park; University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of California System; University of California San Diego
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20200486
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 43-63
• 关键词: prices; INEQUALITY; GROWTH; income; BIAS

摘要

We use a dataset with prices and spending on consumer packaged goods matched at the bar code level across the United States and Mexico to measure the price index in Mexico relative to the United States. Mexican prices relative to the United States are 23 percent lower compared to the International Comparisons Project's (ICP) price index. We decompose the 23 percent gap into the biases from imputation, sampling, quality, and variety. Quality bias increases Mexican prices by 48 percent. Imputation, sampling, and variety bias lowers Mexican prices by 11 percent, 13 percent, and 33 per-cent, respectively. (JEL C43, E31, I31, O11, O12)