What can a Big Mac tell us about currency rates? As it turns out, quite a lot.

The Big Mac Index, created by The Economist in 1986, started out as a simple tool to make currency theory more digestible. Now, it’s a widely-known measure in popular economics to assess and compare currency valuations.

In short, the Big Mac index compares the 

 (PPP) of currencies using the price of a Big Mac in the U.S. as the benchmark. It shows how much a Big Mac costs in various countries compared to the U.S., but it also works as a way to assess exchange rates.

In this graphic, we visualize the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac in U.S. dollars between 13 different countries around the world, the eurozone, and the United States, using the latest January 2024 data from The Economist’s Big Mac Index 

food_and_drinks

> What can a Big Mac tell us about currency rates? As it turns out, quite a lot.
>
> The Big Mac Index, created by The Economist in 1986, started out as a simple tool to make currency theory more digestible. Now, it’s a widely-known measure in popular economics to assess and compare currency valuations.
>
> In short, the Big Mac index compares the [purchasing power parity](https://stacker.news/items/611642) (PPP) of currencies using the price of a Big Mac in the U.S. as the benchmark. It shows how much a Big Mac costs in various countries compared to the U.S., but it also works as a way to assess exchange rates.
>
> In this graphic, we visualize the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac in U.S. dollars between 13 different countries around the world, the eurozone, and the United States, using the latest January 2024 data from The Economist’s Big Mac Index [dataset](https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index?fsrc=core-app-economist).
>
> ![](https://m.stacker.news/41209)
>
> **[🔗 visualcapitalist.com](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-price-of-a-big-mac-across-the-world/)**