Matt Yglesias wants to know why Diet Coke Coca-Cola Light is so expensive in Europe. Beats me. But I can say that this has been the case for a very long time. Back in 1980, after my junior year in college, I spent a few months traveling in Europe with friends and it seemed as if Coke got more expensive with every new country we visited. As I recall, we finally just stopped drinking the stuff after paying five francs for a can in Paris once and having it finally occur to us just how much that was. Adjusting for the then-current exchange rate and 30 years of inflation, that can cost me a little over $3.
But expensive though it might still be, fizzy sugar water won’t set you back $3 a can these days. So that’s the good news: Coke may still be overpriced in Europe, but not by as much as it used to be. Progress!
