DO-IT-YOURSELF AND GDP*

Do-it-yourself activities are, by definition, those for which a choice must exist between doing it oneself or hiring someone else. This means they typically involve the own account production of services, but whereas it is customary to include most goods produced on own account in GDP services are conventionally excluded. In principle, however, it is possible to envisage a comprehensive and unique measure of the total final output of all the goods and services produced within an economy whether for sale or own use. Such a measure would be better than GDP as an indicator of long term changes in economic welfare, being independent of any shifts in the ratio of market to non-market production. Moreover, it would be a homogeneous measure with clearly defined limits in contrast to improvised indices of welfare which mix economic and non-economic variables in arbitrary and subjective ways. However, the need for a measure of market output, or something very close to it such as GDP, is still as strong as ever as soon as attention is switched from measurement of long term growth to problems associated with market disequilibria, such as unemployment and inflation.     

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE USEFULNESS OF ROUTE ADVICE GIVEN BY BRITISH RAIL TO PASSENGERS

Advice on how to make thirty cross-country rail journeys has been sought from principal information offices of British Rail. Their answers have been evaluated in comparison with the possible routes as revealed by examining the complete timetable of passenger rail services, and has been found seriously inadequate or incomplete in twenty-two of the thirty cases. Following British Rail's advice would have resulted in the journey taking, on average, about 9% longer than necessary, and in three of the thirty cases, the extra time amounted to more than 1 hour.