"Australia has a one of the strongest economies in the developed world. It survived the recent recession unscathed and hasn’t had a real recession in 20 years. And as Australian academics have noted, "Australia and New Zealand, with among the highest minimum wages in the world, have both low levels of unemployment and significantly lower levels of low paid employees.
Bankruptcies due to medical costs, which accounted for 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies before the Affordable Care Act, are completely unknown there."
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/laura-chapin/2014/12/09...
That's actually easily explained by manufacturers tying their product to the US dollar. We're getting fucked by this in Canada, too. My favorite is when Apple laptops fluctuate by $200CAD in either direction while my salary stays the same.
Just look at a chart of your dollar against the USD. Movies are more local in a sense.
And a popular videogame can be wildly more expensive. MLB The Show 2018 for instance is $60 in the US and $100 in AU. These prices are outside that which is explained by the current exchange rate.
Yes, you are being paid more. The price of living is also drastically higher there. I think there are better case-studies than Australia.
[0] https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/fact-finders/cinema/indus...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/187091/average-ticket-pr...