As they involve expectations about the future and long lead times for planning and construction, the evolution of investment projects is usually complex and volatile. This paper analyses an important aspect of this volatility by studying the nature of the investment process, from the initial...

This paper reviews and synthetises three areas: The International Comparison Program (ICP), purchasing power parity (PPP) and patterns of household expenditure across countries. To compare countries consistently, the ICP uses relative price levels as PPPs. This approach is seemingly different to...