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Taking the current state as given, of course alleviating a bunch of infirmities is productive. Of course, fixing your broken down car is productive. Of course clearing the garbage from the alleys is productive.
Agreed. But if year after year you find that you're spending more and more of your resources on these activities, that's a sign something might be awry.
Do you know of anyone who’s tried to create a GDP alternative that excludes maintenance type stuff. There are some tricky conceptual issues to work out.
No, I don't know of any. But I think it would be a good idea, especially if the BEA does it, essentially like an official statement that you shouldn't take the headline GDP number as a gospel-truth summary indicator. There's a lot more nuance to this under the hood.
The big problem is that spending less upfront, knowing more maintenance is required, is almost just like buying on a deferred payment plan.
People buy cheap unhealthy food, reap the hedonic benefits, and then make up the difference in increased medical expenditures. If you drop the maintenance part, you’re missing whatever utility justified that choice.
You really have to zoom out from where we usually do analysis to get this.
Taking the current state as given, of course alleviating a bunch of infirmities is productive. Of course, fixing your broken down car is productive. Of course clearing the garbage from the alleys is productive.
Do you know of anyone who’s tried to create a GDP alternative that excludes maintenance type stuff. There are some tricky conceptual issues to work out.