Translating between Currencies

from salamanca.currency import Translator

Translating between currencies requires a number of different choices

• do you want to consider the relative value of two currencies based on Market Exchange Rates or Purchasing Power Parity?

• do you subscribe to the the GDP Deflator or Consumer Price Index schools of inflation calculations?

Which to use can be very context or use case dependent. salamanca offers all options with data supplied by the World Bank. Below are a few examples.

Basics

Let’s start by getting to know the trusty Translator and its primary weapon exchange()

xltr = Translator()

Every translation is based on countries and years. By default, the Translator assumes you want the USD value of a currency in a year based on market exchange rates using GDP deflators.

So, for example, translating 20 Euros (the currency of Austria) in 2010 would net you 26.5 US Dollars.

xltr.exchange(20, iso='AUT', yr=2010)

26.514333333333386

xltr.exchange(20, fromiso='AUT', toiso='USA', yr=2010) # equivalent to the above defaults

26.514333333333386

You can further translate 20 2010 Euros into 2015 US Dollars as

xltr.exchange(20, fromiso='AUT', toiso='USA',
              fromyr=2010, toyr=2015)

28.88848849954665

Additional Options

You can specify options such as using CPI rather than GDP Deflators

xltr.exchange(20, fromiso='AUT', toiso='USA',
              fromyr=2010, toyr=2015,
              inflation_method='cpi')

28.819946039731406

Similarly, you can use Purchasing Power Parity rather than Market Exchange Rates

xltr.exchange(20, fromiso='AUT', toiso='USA',
              fromyr=2010, toyr=2015,
              units='PPP')

25.919029469737964