Tradable

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A tradable good or service can be sold distant from where it is produced. Different goods have differing levels of tradability: the higher the cost of transportation and the shorter the shelf life, the less tradable a good is. Prepared food, for example, is not generally considerted a tradable good; it will be sold in the city it is produced, and does not directly compete with other cities' prepared foods.

[edit] Price Equalization

Perfectly tradable goods, like shares of stock, are subject to the law of one price: they should cost the same amount wherever they are bought. This law requires an efficient market, and goods that cannot be costlessly traded are not subject to it. Less than perfectly tradable goods are as a result subject to distortions such as the Penn effect, a lowering of real price in less wealthy places. Perfectly nontradable goods are not subject to any leveling of price, thus the disparity between similar parcels of real estate in different locations.

There should be no distortions in purchasing power parity for perfectly tradable goods. The differences between PPP and other methods are the result of non-tradable goods and the above-mentioned Penn effect.