IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmac/v15y2023i4p40-66.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Product Variety, the Cost of Living, and Welfare across Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Cavallo
  • Robert C. Feenstra
  • Robert Inklaar

Abstract

We use the structure of the Melitz (2003) model to compute the cost of living and welfare across 47 countries, and compare these to conventional measures of prices and real consumption from the International Comparisons Project (ICP). The cost of living is inferred without directly using ICP prices of traded goods and instead relying on output prices, openness, domestic trade costs, and product variety measured by the counts of barcodes or firms. We find that welfare relative to the United States is lower than indicated by real consumption for most countries, but similar in China and Japan and similar or higher in some European countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Cavallo & Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar, 2023. "Product Variety, the Cost of Living, and Welfare across Countries," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 40-66, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:40-66
    DOI: 10.1257/mac.20210137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20210137
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.34894/7RCSFZ
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20210137.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20210137.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mac.20210137?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Cavallo, 2017. "Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-channel Retailers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(1), pages 283-303, January.
    2. Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2014. "The Relative Price of Services," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 727-746, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Han, Zheng & Li, Hongtao, 2022. "Transportation infrastructure and trade," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    2. Zheng, Han & Hongtao, Li, 2022. "Transportation Infrastructure and Trade," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-119, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    3. Cavallo, Alberto & Kryvtsov, Oleksiy, 2023. "What can stockouts tell us about inflation? Evidence from online micro data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    4. Gouel, Christophe & Jean, Sébastien, 2023. "Love of variety and gains from trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kazunobu Hayakawa & Hiroshi Mukunoki & Shujiro Urata, 2023. "Can e-commerce mitigate the negative impact of COVID-19 on international trade?," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 74(2), pages 215-232, April.
    2. Neslin, Scott A., 2022. "The omnichannel continuum: Integrating online and offline channels along the customer journey," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 111-132.
    3. Leela Nageswaran & Soo-Haeng Cho & Alan Scheller-Wolf, 2020. "Consumer Return Policies in Omnichannel Operations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5558-5575, December.
    4. Trenczek, Jan & Wacker, Konstantin M., 2023. "Human Capital Misallocation and Output per Worker Differences: Beyond Cobb-Douglas," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1331, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Elizabeth Emperatriz García-Salirrosas & Dany Yudet Millones-Liza & Jorge Alberto Esponda-Pérez & Ángel Acevedo-Duque & Jessica Müller-Pérez & Lisette C. Sánchez Díaz, 2022. "Factors Influencing Loyalty to Health Food Brands: An Analysis from the Value Perceived by the Peruvian Consumer," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-16, August.
    6. Paul Dolfen & Liran Einav & Peter J. Klenow & Benjamin Klopack & Jonathan D. Levin & Larry Levin & Wayne Best, 2023. "Assessing the Gains from E-Commerce," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 342-370, January.
    7. José Anson & Mauro Boffa, 2018. "Consumer Arbitrage in Cross-Border E-commerce," RSCAS Working Papers 2018/17, European University Institute.
    8. Margarida Duarte & Diego Restuccia, 2020. "Relative Prices and Sectoral Productivity," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 1400-1443.
    9. Claire Giordano, 2023. "Revisiting the real exchange rate misalignment‐economic growth nexus via the across‐sector misallocation channel," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1329-1384, September.
    10. Peter Gal & Alexander Hijzen, 2016. "The short-term impact of product market reforms: A cross-country firm-level analysis," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1311, OECD Publishing.
    11. Alex Nikolsko‐Rzhevskyy & Oleksandr Talavera & Nam Vu, 2023. "The flood that caused a drought," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(4), pages 965-981, October.
    12. Criscuolo, Chiara & Andrews, Dan & Gal, Peter N., 2019. "The best versus the rest: divergence across firms during the global productivity slowdown," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103405, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Lavopa, Alejandro & Szirmai, Adam, 2018. "Structural modernisation and development traps. An empirical approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 59-73.
    14. Jouchi Nakajima & Masato Takahashi & Tomoyuki Yagi, "undated". "An Assessment of Online Consumption Trends in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 22-E-11, Bank of Japan.
    15. Balk, Bert M. & Rambaldi, Alicia N. & Rao, D. S. Prasada, 2022. "Macro-Economic Measures For A Globalized World: Global Growth And Inflation," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 314-360, March.
    16. Patrick Bajari & Zhihao Cen & Victor Chernozhukov & Manoj Manukonda & Jin Wang & Ramon Huerta & Junbo Li & Ling Leng & George Monokroussos & Suhas Vijaykunar & Shan Wan, 2023. "Hedonic prices and quality adjusted price indices powered by AI," CeMMAP working papers 08/23, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    17. Peng, Cong, 2019. "Does e-commerce reduce traffic congestion? Evidence from Alibaba Single Day shopping event," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103411, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Herz, Benedikt & Mejer, Malwina, 2021. "The effect of design protection on price and price dispersion: Evidence from automotive spare parts," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    19. Drenik, Andrés & Perez, Diego J., 2020. "Price setting under uncertainty about inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 23-38.
    20. Shen, Yinhai & Zhang, Qing & Zhang, Zhichao & Ma, Xinyu, 2022. "Omnichannel retailing return operations with consumer disappointment aversion," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 9(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:40-66. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.