Today I Learned (TIL)

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Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com

TIL in 2011 the Argentine government is believed to have begun making McDonald's underprice the Big Mac specifically to cover the country's high inflation on The Economist's Big Mac index (www.economist.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com to c/todayilearned@civilloquy.com

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The Big Mac index started as a joke, but became a somewhat respectable—if still highly informal—way of measuring Purchasing Power Parity. Argentina took advantage of this by making it really cheap but hiding it so no one would order it, artificially improving the country's score.

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[–] reverie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

The pitfalls of having your economic indicator based solely off the price of 1 specific hamburger

[–] carobwagoner@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

While your claim may or may not be true. The posted article doesn't support it. It only says that the inflation according to BigMac is higher than official reporting numbers. There's nothing on it supporting any government interference on the Hamburg price to lower the numbers.