Comments On: “Selected Problems of Intercountry Comparisons on the Basis of the Experience of the Eec”

The paper by Gerardi covers considerable ground, touching on a wide variety of issues in the area of international comparisons of product and purchasing power. Since our views on most of these subjects have been expounded in one or another of the International Comparison Project volumes and we will concentrate mainly on the central issue raised by Gerardi of the selection of an aggregation process that must somehow take account of the tastes of all the people who are the subject of an international comparison inquiry. In addition, we comment on some other points including the notion of special purpose PPPs. Finally, we make a brief statement about where we think future research will be most useful in improving international comparisons.