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.     

Small sample performance of the Stein-Rule in non-orthogonal designs

The effects of multicollinearity upon the risk improvement provided by Stein-like estimators over the maximum likelihood estimator in the normal regression model are investigated via Monte Carlo methods. Risk gains are found to degenerate rapidly given moderate degrees of multicollinearity.     

Breaking the norm: An empirical investigation into the unraveling of good behavior

We present results from an artefactual field experiment conducted in rural Peru that considers whether observing non-reciprocal behavior influences an individual's decision to reciprocate. Specifically, we consider the behavior of second movers in a trust game, assessing whether their decision to reciprocate is influenced by the observed reciprocity of others. In documenting the impact of an external shock to observed reciprocity, this paper shows that small increases in non-reciprocal behavior result in an unraveling of the norm of reciprocity. Survey data is used to explore mechanisms by which this occurred. Results are not consistent with learning effects, suggesting that preferences may be changed by observing others deviating from a norm of reciprocity. These results suggest that investing in encouraging trustworthy behavior can have large benefits in situations where individuals are observing each other's behavior, such as may be the case in a new market institution.     

Ready for the Revolution? Why Publishing Consumer Research Is Changing

Thirty‐five years after completing my Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, publishing academic research on consumer well‐being, or any field for that matter, is on the precipitous of major changes that will make it almost unrecognizable during Gen‐Y's scholarly lifetime. There are many possible causes, from technological advancements in publishing to transdisciplinary ways of fostering research. Regardless, how we think, write, read, and review scholarship is undergoing massive reform. We ignore them at our own peril and must reconsider important aspects of our lives as educators, researchers, and citizens.