James Bond needs a salary raise: His restaurant bills aren't keeping up

The British secret agent's purchasing power depreciated over time: especially since the 1999 introduction of the euro.

James Bond’s “license to kill” is famous. His dining-account purchasing power less so, at least until a recent study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“He dined often and very well,” as revealed in the series of novels and short stories launched by Ian Fleming and continued by a number of successors, economists Lee A. Craig, Julianne Treme and Thomas J. Weiss wrote in an NBER working paper.

The economists constructed data sets for both Bond’s estimated salary and the cost of meals at French restaurants that he went to. Analysis shows that the British secret agent’s purchasing