Indeed that equivalence is exactly what the researches attempted to do:
>the Machiguenga’s 20-soles stake equals about 2.3 days’ pay from the logging or oil companies that occasionally
hire local labor. To match this amount, I set the UCLA stake at $160, which is about 2.3 days’ pay for a graduate student working as a “reader” ($9 –$10 per hour after taxes).
However, this still fails to take into account the decreasing marginal utility of "2.3 days' pay". The typical UCLA student is wealthy enough that 2.3 days' pay is not a big deal (AFAIK most US students only work in the summer?), while for the Machiguengos an additional 2.3 days' pay might be a lot.
You've got to consider that since they're tribal/rural, they also doesn't exactly ~need~ money to survive, and extra money is extra money in the same sense, so you can get a some extra luxury, they already have food*
* Wikipedia says they take subsistance from crops, fishing, rodents... It also says they make their own clothes, so, what's a lot for really? Aren't you failing to remember they don't depend on money as much as we to survive?
>the Machiguenga’s 20-soles stake equals about 2.3 days’ pay from the logging or oil companies that occasionally hire local labor. To match this amount, I set the UCLA stake at $160, which is about 2.3 days’ pay for a graduate student working as a “reader” ($9 –$10 per hour after taxes).
However, this still fails to take into account the decreasing marginal utility of "2.3 days' pay". The typical UCLA student is wealthy enough that 2.3 days' pay is not a big deal (AFAIK most US students only work in the summer?), while for the Machiguengos an additional 2.3 days' pay might be a lot.