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During the early 1990s, I worked as a Research Analyst for the World Resources Institute - a Washington DC Environmental Think-tank. We did a lot of measuring for publications and GDP was often discussed as a limited measure. The challenge of being able to measure an indicator over time was a key problem.

One of the things we did was publish data that utilized purchasing power parity (PPP), which basically involved analyzing prices paid for commodities (or a baskets of goods) in national currencies.

The PPP gave a little better picture of what a person can purchase in their country compared with what other people pay in other countries. What is the status of PPP now? Is it used by economists? Or why not?

posted 5 years, 2 months ago
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