International Income Inequality: Measuring PPP Bias by Estimating Engel Curves for Food

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2012
Volume: 102
Issue: 2
Pages: 1093-1117

Score contribution per author:

8.043 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Purchasing power-adjusted incomes applied in cross-country comparisons are measured with bias. This paper estimates the purchasing power parity (PPP) bias in Penn World Table incomes and provides corrected incomes. The bias is substantial and systematic: the poorer a country, the more its income tends to be overestimated. Consequently, international income inequality is substantially underestimated. The methodological contribution is to exploit the analogies between PPP bias and the bias in consumer price index (CPI) numbers. The PPP bias and subsequent corrected incomes are measured by estimating Engel curves for food, an established method of measuring CPI bias. (JEL C43, D31, E31, O11, O12)

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:102:y:2012:i:2:p:1093-1117
Journal Field
General
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-24