How can we compare people’s incomes across countries?

Incomes measured in local currencies, such as the Brazilian real or the Indian rupee, can provide useful context within each country. But on their own, they tell us nothing about how these figures compare.

We could try using market exchange rates, such as converting everything to US dollars. But this understates people's real income in countries where local prices are often much lower than in the US. This can make these countries appear poorer than they actually are, based on what people can afford locally.

So how can we take into account what people can actually buy locally?

The answer is to use “international dollars”, a hypothetical currency that equates different currencies with *what they can buy*. These dollars adjust for the fact that the cost of living is much higher in some countries than in others, allowing us to compare data in different currencies in terms of their local “purchasing power”.

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Weekly Update:

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