This week in charts
Global equity market
Equity index valuations
Entry price dictates returns
Cross-border fund flows
Sector fund flows
Yields
Cash allocation
Hyperscalers
Retail foot traffic
Research and Development
Our Big Mac index shows how burger prices differ across borders
Since 1986 The Economist has produced the Big Mac index as a light-hearted gauge of whether currencies are at their “correct” level. The famous burger is a good test of currency valuations because of its global uniformity and ubiquity. The same properties make it a useful way of comparing international salaries: how many Big Macs, in principle, can a typical worker afford with their wages?
The more conventional way of comparing incomes is to convert wages in different countries into a common currency. But that is misleading because exchange rates are volatile. Moreover, one American dollar goes a lot farther in, say, the Philippines than it does in America itself. The Big Mac helps to solve this problem as a ready-made illustration of purchasing power: it represents a bundle of goods (or, rather, a bun of goods) that is identical everywhere, and so it serves as a yardstick of the real cost of things from country to country.
For the Big Mac wage analysis (the MacWage, for short), we started with full-time, pre-tax earnings in 2023 as reported by the OECD, a club of 38 mostly rich countries. We then made a simple adjustment, dividing wages by the price of a Big Mac—all in local currencies. That gave us the number of burgers that the average full-time worker can buy annually.
This week’s fun finds
Art and Science Set Sail in Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Artist-at-Sea Program
“There are many ways to tell a story or to document and share research and discoveries,” says artist Ellie Hannon, one of 54 artists who has embarked on a unique residency organized by the Schmidt Ocean Institute (previously). From slip-cast porcelain and painting to 3D printing and virtual reality, the storytelling possibilities are endless in the Artist-at-Sea program, which invites artists to work alongside scientists on weeks-long expeditions into some of the least-explored areas of our oceans.
Interacting with researchers from around the world provides artists the opportunity to reimagine scientific inquiry as a range of art forms and share discoveries and technologies through an approachable medium. Schmidt Ocean Institute then adds one piece from each artist to its collection, exhibiting the work globally in a continued effort to advance knowledge about the marine world.
