I have not reviewed all three previous pages of posts, but here is an interesting comparison:
The cost of living index done by comparitive McDonalds costs around the world.
I haven't heard the results for a few years so did a quick search and come up with
www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2708584this is a very incomplete cut from the article and I recommend you
read the entire write-up.
"The theory of purchasing-power parity says that in the long run
exchange rates should move towards rates that would equalise the
prices of an identical basket of goods and services in any two
countries. This is the thinking behind The Economist's Big Mac
index. Invented in 1986 as a light-hearted guide to whether
currencies are at their "correct" level, our "basket" is a
McDonalds' Big Mac, which is produced locally in almost 120
countries."
"The Big Mac PPP is the exchange rate that would leave a burger in
any country costing the same as in America. The first column of our
table converts the local price of a Big Mac into dollars at current
exchange rates. The average price of a Big Mac in four American
cities is $2.90 (including tax). The cheapest shown in the table is
in the Philippines ($1.23), the most expensive in Switzerland
($4.90). In other words, the Philippine peso is the world's most
undervalued currency, the Swiss franc its most overvalued."
"But perhaps the most interesting finding is that all emerging-
market currencies are undervalued against the dollar. The Chinese
yuan, on which much ink has been spilled in recent months, looks 57%
too cheap."
Checking for Slovakia, USA, Canada, Poland and Hungary the Economist
published in May 2004:
COST OF A BIG MAC
USA $2.90
Canada $2.33 undervalued 33%
Slovakia $1.98 undervalued 32%
Poland $1.63 undervalued 44%
Hungary $2.52 undervalued 13%
"Small wonder, then, that global economic rankings are dramatically
transformed when they are done on a PPP basis rather than market
exchange rates. America remains number one, but China leaps from
seventh place to second, accounting for 13% of world output. India
jumps into fourth place ahead of Germany, and both Brazil and Russia
are bigger than Canada."
So the Polish conclusion appears to be that their contribution to the world economy is undervalued by quite a bit.