Tuesday 22 June 2010

Question for June 22, 2010

The X index is an informal measure to determine the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies by using a slightly unusual measure of the relative cost of goods in those two countries. X was chosen as a measure because it is availabile in many countries, and the raw materials needed for creating X encompass a wide enough basket of goods to be reliable enough to atleast provide a ball-park figure of PPP. This theory was later expanded to include the amount of time an average worker has to work to earn enough to buy one X. This method fails for certain countries because the social status of X is different in different nations (for example, higher in India than USA). Also, in some countries, X has been modified to adapt to local preferences making a direct comparision of PPP difficult.

The five most expensive X are from Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and France. The five least expensive X are from India, Hong Kong, China, Thailand and Malaysia.

Identify X.

8 comments:

Rahul said...

Big Mac? It compares the price of a Big Mac in each country to arrive at the PPP corrected exchange rate.

Dev said...

The car? Or effort/money required to buy a car

PS said...

Beer Pint Index

anuj said...

GDP

Nikhil said...

Umbrella? Has to start with a vowel...

The Answer said...

It is the Big Mac Index. Congrats to Rahul for the answer. Good try by PS for narrowing it to the food/drink category. Nikhil, why do you think it should start with a vowel?

Nikhil said...

"This method fails for certain countries because the social status of an X is different in different nations (for example, higher in India than USA)." Read your question carefully before you set them, B :).

The Answer said...

My bad there. I followed the pronunciation of "X" when using "an". I should not have used an article there at all. For what it's worth, the question has now been edited for grammar.