There seems to be a rather large responce given to the ILO article stating Korea pays the most for beef. I thought I would add some quick stats to round out the scope. First lets take a look at the rankings for beef prices per kilogram as cited in the article:
- Korea $56.44
- Japan $40.50
- Italy $10.36
- UK $11.15
- US $ 8.94
- Mexico $7.85
Now I have some reservations about these figures since they seem to give equal weight to all cuts (no pun intended). Not everyone is buying tenderloin. However lets take these figures as a given.
Now lets take the same rankings and get GDP per capita as a proxy for average wage:
- Korea $24,200
- Japan $33,100
- Italy $29,700
- UK $31,400
- US $43,500
- Mexico $10,600
Putting these to gether it can give you an idea of how much beef you can buy in each country:
- Korea 428.8kg
- Japan 817.3kg
- Mexico 1350.3kg
- Italy 2866.8kg
- UK 2816.1kg
- US 3512.3kg
Or lets take it another way. Here on Wiki is OECD data average hours worked per country:
- Korea 2390 hours
- Japan 1828 hours
- Italy 1523 hours
- UK 1652 hours
- US 1777 hours
- Mexico 1980 hours
Using all this data together you can get an idea of how many hours a worker in a coutntry needs to work for one kg of beef:
- Korea 5.57 hours
- Japan 2.24 hours
- Mexico 1.47 hours
- UK .587 hours
- Italy .531 hours
- US .367 hours
Tell me again why imports are so bad.
16 Comments
Well, I buy Australian beef: 15000won/kg or so.
The consumer is the one getting screwed the most by anti-free trade policies. These people think its ok to help a few local producers survive at the expense of the rest of the population.
Screw the protectionists, I want cheaper stuff.
An American friend was surprised at how much cheaper LA was than Tokyo. Although Japan remains relatively protectionist (compared to the US), its unemployment rate is not much better than that of the US while the American economy has continued to grow at a far faster rate than Japan’s. So much for the benefits of protectionism. Everybody sinks further into the mud, but at least they all sink in it together!
It’s gratifying to learn that my views carry such weight…
Just a minor nitpick, but shouldn’t you be using nominal GDP rather than GDP at PPP in order to figure out how much beef the average person can buy in each country? After all, the prices (in US dollars) would most likely be at current rate of exchange.
And even at comparitively low prices, beef is the most shoplifted item in the supermarket, in today’s Slate.com.
Now I’m hungry.
It’s funny how people (here(SK) used to(?)) piss and moan about the Big Mac Index and yet beef in Korea continues to be a total rip-off. Don’t even get me started on 신토불이!
I never paid that much for beef in my life. I realize I have been out of the States for a while, but really…….. Has beef gone up THAT much????
FTA bad! Overpriced food good!
Damn, nice post! I’m sorry man but I had to snag that post and put it in file on my ipod so I can whip it out on my fellow Korean commie wannabes. Word man, word.
Gillian> In a prior post I do agree the the figures on the whole seem a little hight. I wish I knew more about ILO’s methodology. The seem to give (excuse the pun rich potential of these straight lines) equal weight to every cut of meat. They really should have used a marketbasket approach whereby cuts such as say chuck roast are given more weight than NY strip steaks. Likewise more weight to regular store beef than USDA Prime or Whole Food’s Feelin’ groovy organics.
That all said, I think the numbers do encompass the main point and the proportional price diffrences.
Zonath> Aww…your too sharp. You are right, but as I always like to say “fun with statistics” is a quick and dirty look at the numbers.
56.44 per kg?! Man! Commissary Ajumma is making big money!
“Just a minor nitpick, but shouldn’t you be using nominal GDP rather than GDP at PPP in order to figure out how much beef the average person can buy in each country? After all, the prices (in US dollars) would most likely be at current rate of exchange.”
Even then GDP doesn’t accurately reflect ability to spend. Mean disposable income is what determines spend on relative luxuries. After all Koreans actually get most of their pay packet because of relatively low taxes. In many of the richer EU countries theres not a lot left after high income tax, pension/health benefit contributions and then local property taxes, all topped by VAT at around 20%.
It’s not all bad for koreans, although the post pay packet “hagwon taxes” take a big bite!
I call b.s. on this as well.
The only beef I see at that price are those over-expensive holiday gift sets.
dogbertt,
I agree. Meat is rarely that expensive (I guess it shows we’re maybe the only two guys here who actually go shopping at a Korean supermarket).
Depending on the cut, Korean beef usually sells at around 35000won/kg, less when it’s on sale or when you go to a butcher shop in the countryside that buys directly from the cattle farmers.
Pork and Australian beef are less than 10000won/kg when they are on sale, which happens quite frequently.
PS. For lunch, I’m having pork ribs that I bought yesterday at the supermarket…980won/100g.
I know I shouldn’t laugh but I couldn’t help myself. My office mates must
have thought me mad.
Facing this sort of absurdity it’s the only thing one can do.
good thing I don’t like beef. My girlfriend loves the stuff, but at least
she’s content with imported beef.
I have a ranch in Mexico, Angus breed. Beef in Korea must be imported from the best value offer, It is wrong you guys got to pay so much money.
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Imports are a Good Thing…
A very clear-headed post on the Marmot’s Hole explains in down-to-earth fashion what every sensible economist will state in the face of usually incredulous audiences: that imports are a positive, not a negative, and in fact paying for them is…
[...] that country, has assembled an interesting post that gets down to the bottom of figuring out just how much beef one could buy on the average salary in Korea, Japan, Mexico, the UK, the US and Italy. The post was inspired by a recent Korea Times article reporting that Koreans pay more per kilogram [...]
[...] other day a reader reminded me of the post I did on beef a while back. I estimated how long an average Korean would have to work for a kilogram of beef (it was over 5.5 [...]