Even after allowing for higher purchasing power in a low-cost country, the World Bank puts national income per person at only $3,300, below that of several sub-Saharan African states.
The value of a commodity is allocated by the market.However, when the market is shaped by giant water corporations like Suez and Bechtel, or bottled water companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle, water is stolen from local communities without economic power and sold to those with high purchasing power in distant places.
Moreover, the prevalence of smoking and drinking among youth is fairly high in Seychelles compared to several other African countries [ 29], perhaps partly due to the relatively higher purchasing power in the former than the latter, and fairly high social tolerance to drinking in Seychelles [ 30].
The proportion of individuals with multimorbidity increased from 74.8% in communities with the highest purchasing power to 77.4% in communities with the lowest purchasing power.
The lower the purchasing power of a community, the lower turned out the costs of the patient: the decrease made up 3.4%, 6.6%, 9.5% and 13.4% with each decrease in the purchasing power quintile, compared to patients living in a community with the highest purchasing power.
The standardised data in the present study are based on the statistical report of the international polling institute GFK and range from −1.8 (zip codes with lowest purchasing power) to 6.6 (zip codes with highest purchasing power).
This implies that the preference to stay in Mexico for longer periods of time is higher when the individual's family resides in Mexico or owns a property in Mexico.3 Another reason, put forward by Dustmann (2003) and Dustmann and Weiss (2007), is the existence of a higher purchasing power of the dollar in Mexico.
In other words, they do not account for the higher purchasing power of the savings accumulated in the host country.
