Price Differences In Argentina Late April 2013

[John.St]

Basket of 32 products which were found in all the 15 towns surveyed.

La Plata .... AR$ 344.10
Mar del Plata AR$ 354.73
Corrientes .. AR$ 362.02
Santa Rosa .. AR$ 367.49
Córdoba ..... AR$ 375.- (app. - based on 'slightly less than in BsAs')
Mendoza ..... AR$ 375.- (ditto)
Buenos Aires AR$ 379.75
Posadas ..... AR$ 392.25
Rosario ..... AR$ 410.53
Neuquén ..... AR$ 438.39
Rawson ...... AR$ 484.40

Top to bottom: +40.8%

One kg of tomatoes AR$ 6.50 in Santa Rosa, Tucumán and San Juan, contra AR$ 13.50 de Mendoza (but I paid only AR$ 8.00 yesterday), AR$ 14.40 in Catamarca and AR$ 16.20 in Rawson.

The difference was 122% for onions, 110% for potatoes, 96% for carrots, 88% for apples, oranges and bananas.

http://www.losandes....cias-710743.asp

 

[Rich One]

Conclusion if the INDEC takes the lowest prices in the market around the country they could be off by 40% according to Clarin today!! so the inflation could be 14% ? not the Lorenzino 10,2 %??

 

[Aleina Dee]

Interesting comparison. Bear in mind though that this then has to be a historic error of measurement as Patagonia has always been more expensive and the North always cheaper.

 

[John.St]

Interesting comparison. Bear in mind though that this then has to be a historic error of measurement as Patagonia has always been more expensive and the North always cheaper.

???

Neuquén and Rawson, both in Patagonia, are the two most expensive towns at 438.39 (+21%) and 484.40 (+34%), resp. in comparison to e.g. Corrientes at 362.02 up north.

 

[Aleina Dee]

"En las diferencias influyen la inflación, las políticas comerciales de las empresas y las diferencias en salarios y costos logísticos."

My point was that there has always been a marked difference between Posadas and Patagonia. The logistics of transport have a bearing on the prices for example. In other words in my opinion you cannot measure inflation by the difference between Posadas and Rawson but you would need to take the basket of goods in Posadas let´s say it was 300 pesos in April last year and 330 pesos this year making it an inflation rate of 10% and do the same for Rawson and then take the average of the percentages. Comparing the different costs and making a stab guess at the inflation rate would be inaccurate .
The figure of 40.3 % does not account for the percentage due to the logistics problem in Patagonia and company policies as to what is being sold where.If you can only get stuff de primera marca then your basket will be much more expensiv. I suspect that for Patagonia as the difference in beverages is 69 % to teh cheapest in the country and even the author of the piece allows that other factors play in the different prices.

In other words for every city you need to compare inflation between last year and this year and then take the average percentage out of that.Don´t know if I am making myself clear. I will try to put it another way . If I buy something at 10 pesos here in BA and now it is 11 my inflation rate is 10 % . If they sell it in Rawson at 12 my inflation rate stays at 10 % and you need to know the price in Rawson beforehand to ascertain what their inflation rate is..You might find the inflation rate is the same but prices different . Methods of how things are calculated here and around the world are another debate.
I am done.All the lucidity provided by my morning coffee has been used .

 

[Gringoboy]

I opened a book the other day that I hadn't read for a while and came across this bill for a meal we had back in 2006.
It doesn't have a great deal to do with this subject, but I found it rather curious.

 

[John.St]

...

My point was that there has always been a marked difference between Posadas and Patagonia. The logistics of transport have a bearing on the prices for example. In other words in my opinion you cannot measure inflation by the difference between Posadas and Rawson ...

Ah! But my initial post has nothing to do with inflation - as the headline says, its shows how much prices differ in various towns in Argentina and BTW all the articles are same brand, same amount/size.

 

[John.St]

I opened a book the other day that I hadn't read for a while and came across this bill for a meal we had back in 2006.
It doesn't have a great deal to do with this subject, but I found it rather curious.

Those were the days, my friend
I thought they'd never end

 

[Aleina Dee]

John , I know you didn't but the article is talking about cost of living and inflation at the same time and Rich One also tried to take a stab at extrapolating an inflation figure from the data of the article.

The article states "El mes pasado, otra investigación periodística había revelado que, para cada producto, en la misma zona de la Capital, las diferencias entre el precio más alto y el más bajo promediaban el 20%. Es un nivel de dispersión que, en opinión de expertos, se debe a la inflación y lleva a los consumidores a "perder las referencias" y a malgastar.".
I could have paid 5 pesos for a kilo of toms in Vicente lopez yesterday whereas in Palermo they set me back 8 pesos. My chino sells Imperial stout at 12.40 and Schneider on special offer at 7 pesos. WM sells Schneider around 9 pesos and Imperial at 9.6. So vendors choose to give discounts, increasing the cost of another article to make up for the loss.It has always been that way. Compare the price of mosquito spirals 5.5o versus 8.50 ,same stuff.

However I cannot see the hand of inflation in this. Maybe a wiley vendor knows that people don't know what things should cost anymore and that they automatically put down increases to inflation maybe that is what the journalist is trying to say with what I highlighted in bold but he worded it very ambiguously.

 

[John.St]

Aleina, I see what you mean, and you are right about the sloppy exp<b></b>ression, but it is a canasta of 32 different products, so special offers can be presumed to have little influence on the totals.

"Es un nivel de dispersión que, en opinión de expertos, se debe a la inflación y lleva a los consumidores a "perder las referencias" y a malgastar."
relates to local differences in price
"El mes pasado, otra investigación periodística había revelado que, para cada producto, en la misma zona de la Capital, las diferencias entre el precio más alto y el más bajo promediaban el 20%."

I think we understand each other now