1. In just about any country, a Big Mac costs less in 2016 than what it cost a year ago. The only country where the price went slightly up is India. This is a result of both the weakening global economy, but more importantly of strengthening of the U.S. Dollar and thus a drop in the Big Mac price in the dollar equivalent. Original publication here.
2. The Big Mac proved popular and it was added to the menu of all U.S. Restaurants in 1968. The Big Mac consists of two 1.6 oz (45.4 g) beef patties, 'special sauce' (a variant of Thousand Island dressing), iceberg lettuce, American cheese, pickles, and onions, served in a three-part sesame seed bun.

The statistic depicts the prices for a Big Mac in Mexico from 2010 to 2020. The so-called Big Mac index is regarded as an indicator for the purchasing power of an economy. Buy the Spreadsheet! This spreadsheet contains all the Big Mac Index data going back to it's inception in 1986. It is an ideal tool for researchers, teachers, and investors that need to study this data.

THE BIG MAC index was invented by The Economist in 1986 as a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their “correct” level. It is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP), the notion that in the long run exchange rates should move towards the rate that would equalise the prices of an identical basket of goods and services (in this case, a burger) in any two countries.

Burgernomics was never intended as a precise gauge of currency misalignment, merely a tool to make exchange-rate theory more digestible. Yet the Big Mac index has become a global standard, included in several economic textbooks and the subject of dozens of academic studies. For those who take their fast food more seriously, we also calculate a gourmet version of the index for 55 countries plus the euro area.

The GDP-adjusted index addresses the criticism that you would expect average burger prices to be cheaper in poor countries than in rich ones because labour costs are lower. PPP signals where exchange rates should be heading in the long run, as a country like China gets richer, but it says little about today's equilibrium rate. The relationship between prices and GDP per person may be a better guide to the current fair value of a currency.

Read more about the Big Mac index in “How big is China’s economy? Let the Big Mac decide”. You can also download the data or read the methodology behind the Big Mac index here.

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Mcdonald's Value Menu