Launch of the Bath Curry Indicator: Economists take on Lunch

Held over a lunchtime Zoom session, “Launch of the Bath Curry Indicator (BCI): Economists take on Lunch” introduced Advocata’s own take on the “Big Mac Index” style of informal price tracking — using the everyday Sri Lankan rice-and-curry (“bath”) lunch as a simple, relatable gauge of real-world cost-of-living inflation. The panel — Deshal De Mel, Research Director at Verité Research, Rehana Thowfeek Zain, and Advocata Research Executive Naqiya Shiraz, moderated by Research Manager Aneetha Warusavitarana — walked through what the indicator actually measures, tracking the price of a standard rice-and-curry meal across outlets as a proxy for inflation that ordinary Sri Lankans feel directly, in contrast to more abstract headline CPI figures. The main highlight was the discussion of the BCI’s practical use for policy analysis: because it tracks a good that virtually every Sri Lankan buys regularly, the indicator offered a faster, more intuitive read on food-price inflation and the squeeze on household budgets than official statistics, which can lag or mask the specific pressures facing lower-income consumers — making the case that simple, high-frequency, real-economy indicators like the BCI have a real role to play alongside conventional macroeconomic data in tracking Sri Lanka’s cost-of-living crisis.