The economist’s question, “What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?” cannot be answered because, as far as I can tell, there is no available time series on the price of tea in China. I scoured the internet. Not there (prove me wrong, please).
If one wishes to believe that the price of tea in China is closely correlated with the (commodity) auction price of Mombasa, Kenya tea then the following time series will do just fine.
But couldn’t China’s manipulation of its currency cause its tea price to deviate from the commodity price? Moreover, I want to know the price of tea in China, not the price of Chinese tea on the world market.
At the moment, asking what something has to do with the price of tea in China is an unfair question. Nobody can know the answer empirically. Of course, theoretically, the answer is, “Nothing.” But theorists can be wrong.
