The "Balassa-Samuelson effect" is a model cited as the principal cause of the Penn effect by neo-classical economics, as well as being a synonym of "Penn effect".
Pre-1940, the PPP hypothesis found econometric support, but some time after the Second World War, a series of studies by a Penn team documented a modern relationship: countries with higher incomes consistently had higher prices of domestically produced goods (as measured by comparable price indices), relative to prices of goods included in the exchange rate.
In 1964 the modern theoretical interpretation was set down as the Balassa-Samuelson effect, with studies since then consistently confirming the original Penn effect. However, subsequent analysis has provided many other mechanisms through which the Penn effect can arise, and historical cases where it is expected, but not found. Up until 1994 the PPP-deviation tended to be known as the "Balassa-Samuelson effect", but in his review of progress "Facets of Balassa-Samuelson Thirty Years Later" Paul Samuelson acknowledged the debt that his theory owed to the Penn World Tables data-gatherers, by coining the term "Penn effect" to describe the "basic fact" they uncovered, when he wrote: :The Penn effect is an important phenomenon of actual history, but not an inevitable fact of life.
For instance, the same Big Mac cost $5.46 in Switzerland, and $1.49 in Russia in December 2004, at the prevailing USD exchange rate into the local currencies. To avoid confusion arising from money prices the nominal exchange rates are usually ignored, with only the 'real exchange rate' (RER) being considered. (Here, 3.66 Russian meals to one Swiss.)
If a McDonalds patron in Zurich were able to eat in an identical Moscow restaurant at one quarter the price they would do so, and price competition would then equalize the Big Mac price throughout the world. Of course, someone can only eat out locally, so regional price differentials can persist; the Moscow and Zurich branches are not in competition. If the Moscow McDonalds starts giving away burgers the price in Zurich will be unaffected, since one is unlikely to dine in Moscow if starting the evening in Zurich.
If the genuine income differential (taking local prices into account) is exaggerated by the RER, so the real difference in the standard of living between rich and poor countries is less than GDP per capita figures would suggest. To make a more significant comparison, economists divide a country's average income by its consumer price index.
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