In the study of performance...
One approach to standardizing sales data across different regions of the country may be to adjust for the relative wealth/purchasing power of the clientele in a given region. For example selling 50k USD merch in Lubbock, TX is more impressive performance than selling 50k USD merch in Beverly Hills, CA. Although it is possible to use the cases in your sample to build your region-standardized variables, these sample-based estimates can be incredibly biased and in fact could penalize truly high-performing regions.
Does anyone know of a resource? data table? method? that could provide estimates of how dollars equate across major regions of the country... Maybe by zipcode? Maybe this is related to cost of living or median income of region? any ideas?
The more valid, transparent and defensible the estimates (e.g., govt resource), the better. -Thanks!