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The general price level is a hypothetical measure of overall prices for some set of goods and services (the consumer basket), in an economy or monetary union during a given interval (generally one day), normalized relative to some base set. Typically, the general price level is approximated with a daily price index, normally the Daily CPI.
This index uses the arithmetic average of the current and based period quantities for weighting. It is considered a pseudo-superlative formula and is symmetric. [12] The use of the Marshall-Edgeworth index can be problematic in cases such as a comparison of the price level of a large country to a small one.
Purchasing power parity (PPP) [1] is a measure of the price of specific goods in different countries and is used to compare the absolute purchasing power of the countries' currencies. PPP is effectively the ratio of the price of a market basket at one location divided by
The price in the base year is normalized to 100. For example, for computer hardware, we could define a "unit" to be a computer with a specific level of processing power, memory, hard drive space and so on. A price deflator of 200 means that the current-year price of this computing power is twice its base-year price - price inflation.
If for years 1 and 2 (possibly a span of 20 years apart), the nominal wage and price level P of goods are respectively nominal wage rate: $10 in year 1 and $16 in year 2 price level: 1.00 in year 1 and 1.333 in year 2, then real wages using year 1 as the base year are respectively: $10 (= $10/1.00) in year 1 and $12 (= $16/1.333) in year 2.
Price indices have several potential uses. For particularly broad indices, the index can be said to measure the economy's general price level or cost of living. More narrow price indices can help producers with business plans and pricing. Sometimes, they can be useful in helping to guide investment. Some notable price indices include:
A simple numerical example: If prices in the United States rise by 3% and prices in the European Union rise by 1%, then the price of EUR quoted in USD should rise by approximately 2%, which is equivalent with a 2% depreciation of the USD or an increase in the purchasing power of the EUR relative to that of the USD. Note that the above ...
When the price elasticity of demand is unit (or unitary) elastic (E d = −1), the percentage change in quantity demanded is equal to that in price, so a change in price will not affect total revenue. When the price elasticity of demand is relatively elastic (−∞ < E d < −1), the percentage change in quantity demanded is greater than that ...