carried out under the International Comparison Project (ICP), which represents 8. joint undertaking of the Statistical Office, the World Bank and the International Comparison Unit of the University of Pennsylvania. 112. Begun in lgG8, this project has calculated detailed and aggregated PPPs for about 34 countries. These PPPs are at a leve1 Trhich recognises as many as 153 detailed categories of GDP. Rlthough the military sector is not specificallg recognized, PPPs are derived for government expenditures in some detail. The PPPs have been calculated for selected benchmarlc years - 1970, 1973 and 1975 - but according to the ICP, the PPPs may be extrapolated by application of price indexes so as to apply to expenditures in other years. 113. The results of the ICP have shown that the distorting effects of using exchange rates to compare certain expenditures among countries can be very large. The extent of distortion tends to increase with two factors (ana primarily the first) namely, the relative income per capita, and indexes of exposure to international trade. f/ The extent of distortion can be illustrated by the data from the ICP (table lr below) for selected countries in 1970 on GDP after conversion to a common currency. g/ e/ Official Records of the General Assemblg, Thirtg-third Session, Supplement No, 11 (A/33/11 and Corr,l), para, 11, c/ Irving B. Kravis, Alan W. Reston, and Robert Summers, "Real GDP Per Capita '1 For Yore Than One Hundred Countries," The Economic Journal, June 1978. L/ Irving B. ICravis et al., International Comparisons of Real Product and Purchasinq Power (United Kations International Comparison Project: Phase II (Baltimore ana London, The John Hopkins University Press, 19781, p. 22. 2 .T 7. .$ / . . . ~ -51- Table 14. Comparison of exchange rate and PPP for selected countries 
**Analysis**
The text appears to be discussing a project that aims to compare the gross domestic product (GDP) of different countries using purchasing power parity (PPP) instead of exchange rates. This suggests that the text is related to economic development and international trade, as it is concerned with comparing the economic performance of different countries.

**Category**
Economic development, International trade