As of 2022, Israel had the highest price level index among listed countries, amounting to 138, with 100 being the average of OECD countries. Switzerland and Iceland followed on the places behind. On the other hand, Turkey and India had the lowest price levels compared to the OECD average. This price index shows differences in price levels in different countries. Another very popular index indicating the value of money is the Big Mac index, showing how much a Big Mac costs in different countries. This list was also topped by Switzerland in 2023.

This dataset provides values for PRODUCER PRICES reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

This dataset provides values for WHOLESALE PRICES reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

Poland's average transaction prices for a dwelling are shown as 100 percent. The average prices in nearly all of the main cities in Poland were higher than the country average. The highest prices for a dwelling were seen in Warsaw.

The average for 2021 based on 165 countries was 105.854 index points. The highest value was in South Korea: 208.84 index points and the lowest value was in India: 58.17 index points. The indicator is available from 2017 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

A table comparing the cost of living in various European Union countries, including expenses for rent, utilities, food, and transportation in major cities

The average for 2021 based on 165 countries was 79.81 index points. The highest value was in Bermuda: 212.7 index points and the lowest value was in Syria: 33.25 index points. The indicator is available from 2017 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Germany, Belgium, and Ireland had some of the highest household electricity prices worldwide, as of June 2024. At the time, German households were charged around 0.39 U.S. dollars per kilowatt-hour, while in Belgium, the price stood at 0.37 U.S. dollars per kilowatt-hour. By comparison, in Qatar, residents paid more than 10 times less. What is behind electricity prices? Electricity prices vary widely across the world and sometimes even within a country itself, depending on factors like infrastructure, geography, and politically determined taxes and levies. For example, in Denmark, Belgium, and Sweden, taxes constitute a significant portion of residential end-user electricity prices. Reliance on fossil fuel imports Meanwhile, thanks to their great crude oil and natural gas production output, countries like Iran, Qatar, and Russia enjoy some of the cheapest electricity prices in the world. Here, the average household pays less than 0.1 U.S. dollars per kilowatt-hour. In contrast, countries heavily reliant on fossil fuel imports for electricity generation are more vulnerable to market price fluctuations. The top importers of natural gas in Europe in 2023 were Germany and Italy, where this energy source constitutes a relevant share of the power mix.

This statistic shows the average monthly price for fixed broadband services by speed level in selected countries in 2018. In the United States, the monthly price of fixed broadband services with a speed of 16 to 40 Mbps stood at around 65.16 U.S. dollars in 2018.

How much more expensive are houses in European capital cities than in the rest of the country? Of all the capital cities in Europe, prices in Paris had the highest disproportion to the national average in 2023. A new house in the French capital cost more than three times the price of a house outside the city. This was followed by Barcelona, Munich and Athens.

This dataset provides values for CORE CONSUMER PRICES reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

This dataset is about books. It has 1 row and is filtered where the book is International price comparison : a study of the prices of pharmaceuticals in the UK and eight other countries in 1970. It features 7 columns including author, publication date, language, and book publisher.

Context

A lot of my friends love the iphone (just like many people across the world), so I thought it would interesting to collect rent and iphone price information for countries around the world and draw comparisons. The data itself was collected manually by search price aggregator sites. I used themacindex[dot]com link for the iphone prices and chose the most expensive iPhone (iPhone 12 Pro Max 512GB) for the comparisons (Go big or go home right?).

The rent is taken from numbeo which I personally use for planning travel. As a price comparison aggregator I feel like Numbeo is an impartial source of raw data. Example link

I chose not to scrape the sites automatically for two main reasons: 1) I am using a laptop with windows and I haven't used scrapy on a windows machine before. 2) I am serving a 14 day quarantine in a country before I start my masters and I am very bored.

For monetary_data.csv the data was gathered on 3rd January 2020 and is reflective of site data on that date. For cost_living.csv the data was gathered manually on 6th January 2020 (UTC) and is reflective of site data on that date.

Content

The monetary_data csv has 4 columns: Country, iphone_price, avg_rent, rent_frac

Country: This column acts as my index for plotting graphs.

iphone_price: This column contains the prices of the iphone model mentioned earlier. From the website, it contains the list price (before taxes and rebates) in USD or local list price in USD equivalent.

avg_rent: This column contains the price of renting a 1 bhk apartment. The value shown is the average of rents for apartments in city center and outside the city center.

rent_fraction: This column contains Numbeo's model calculated fraction of a person's income devoted to rent. For example, a value of 0.20 means that 20% of a person's rent is devoted to rent. I found these values too low in practice (meaning that average monthly expenses were too high to be realistic), so I avoided using that data, but I have included it for completeness sake.

The cost_living csv has 7 columns: Country, Gasoline_per_L, Diesel_per_L, Electricity_per_KWHr, Food_for_2_out, Jeans, and Car (Hatchback)

Note: data obtained from https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/ is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). I have clarified with the owners that my use of this data (the Kaggle DS Survey 2020 competition) does not violate the terms under which it is released.

Country: This column acts as the index for plots

Gasoline_per_L: This data was obtained from globalpetrolprices.com and indicates the Gasoline (Petrol) price per liter in that country.

** Diesel_per_L**: This data was obtained from globalpetrolprices.com and indicates the Diesel price per liter in that country.

Electricity_per_KWHr: This data was obtained from globalpetrolprices.com and indicates the cost of electricity per Kilowatt-hour in that country.

Food_for_2_out: This data was obtained from numbeo and indicates the price for a meal for 2 at a mid-range restaurant in that country.

Jeans: This data was obtained from numbeo and indicates the average price for an ordinary pair of jeans from global manufacturers like Levi's or similar.

Car (Hatckback): This data was obtained from numbeo and indicates the average price of a hatchback car similar to the volkswagen golf.

Inspiration

Is a geographically determined salary a good idea when skills are the same and the projects people work on are basically global in scale? Does PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) make sense when the prices of many common goods are basically the same around the world? However comical, does this data reflect the need to arrive at a better economic model for the world to function on? Especially when this economic model lowers standards of living around the world while benefiting only a select few? Developed countries also suffer from large income disparities across their population.

I am including a fair use statement since the purpose of this dataset is to critic the disparity between location agnostic product pricing and geographically determined salaries.

Fair Use:

Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.

Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use*

This statistic shows food prices in France, Germany and Ireland compared to the United Kingdom (UK) in 2016, by food and beverage type. Almost all food prices in each of the three European countries were comparatively higher than in the UK. Germany had the biggest difference with the price of alcoholic beverages costing 56.6 percent less on average.

This dataset provides values for PRODUCER PRICE INFLATION MOM reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

This dataset provides values for CONSUMER CONFIDENCE PRICE TRENDS reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

The average for 2021 based on 165 countries was 96.25 index points. The highest value was in Switzerland: 286.09 index points and the lowest value was in Rwanda: 43.84 index points. The indicator is available from 2017 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

This dataset provides values for IMPORT PRICES reported in several countries. The data includes current values, previous releases, historical highs and record lows, release frequency, reported unit and currency.

The average for 2021 based on 165 countries was 92.43 index points. The highest value was in Sweden: 185.61 index points and the lowest value was in Syria: 30.94 index points. The indicator is available from 2017 to 2021. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

At 7.99 U.S. dollars, Switzerland has the most expensive Big Macs in the world, according to the January 2025 Big Mac index. Concurrently, the cost of a Big Mac was 5.79 dollars in the U.S., and 5.95 U.S. dollars in the Euro area. What is the Big Mac index? The Big Mac index, published by The Economist, is a novel way of measuring whether the market exchange rates for different countries’ currencies are overvalued or undervalued. It does this by measuring each currency against a common standard – the Big Mac hamburger sold by McDonald’s restaurants all over the world. Twice a year the Economist converts the average national price of a Big Mac into U.S. dollars using the exchange rate at that point in time. As a Big Mac is a completely standardized product across the world, the argument goes that it should have the same relative cost in every country. Differences in the cost of a Big Mac expressed as U.S. dollars therefore reflect differences in the purchasing power of each currency. Is the Big Mac index a good measure of purchasing power parity? Purchasing power parity (PPP) is the idea that items should cost the same in different countries, based on the exchange rate at that time. This relationship does not hold in practice. Factors like tax rates, wage regulations, whether components need to be imported, and the level of market competition all contribute to price variations between countries. The Big Mac index does measure this basic point – that one U.S. dollar can buy more in some countries than others. There are more accurate ways to measure differences in PPP though, which convert a larger range of products into their dollar price. Adjusting for PPP can have a massive effect on how we understand a country’s economy. The country with the largest GDP adjusted for PPP is China, but when looking at the unadjusted GDP of different countries, the U.S. has the largest economy.