We need to rethink productivity data, in light of so many “working hours” spent consuming distractions.

Sir, referencing Chris Giles’ and Gavin Jackson’s “Surge in low-value jobs magnifies UK productivity problem” of August 13, I believe that whenstating “increases in low-wage jobs in bars, social work and warehouses have served to hold back UK productivity growth” it hints at sort of causation that might not really be there.

I say so because we have entered a new era that requires redefining entirely the ways we measure productivity. 

Some months ago, in Bank of England’s “bankunderground” blog, we read a post by Dan Nixon titled “Is the economy suffering from the crisis of attention?”. It said, “With the rise of smartphones in particular, the amount of stimuli competing for our attention throughout the day has exploded... we are more distracted than ever as a result of the battle for our attention. One study, for example, finds that we are distracted nearly 50% of the time.”

Nixon, answering the question posed in the title wrote, “The most obvious place to look would be in productivity growth, which has been persistently weak across advanced economies over the past decade.”

But, what if instead of being recorded as distractions during working hours, these were to be recorded as a private consumption that reduces the effective working hours? Would that not increase GDP and reduce working hours, and thereby point instead to a dramatic increase in productivity?

In the same vein, would then not real-salaries, instead of stagnating, have been increasing a lot?

And what about our employment and unemployment data if the time used to consume distractions during working hours would not be counted as work? 

Sir, it behooves us to make certain how we measure the economy gets updated to reflect underlying realities. 

Perhaps then we are able to understand better the growing need for worthy and decent unemployments.

Perhaps then we are able to better understand the need for a Universal Basic Income, not as to allow some to stay in bed, but to allow everyone a better opportunity to reach up to whatever gainful employments might be left, like those “low-wage jobs” that it behooves us all, not to consider as “low value jobs”

@PerKurowski

Bank credit: In tough times there are no benefits derived from making it harder for the tough to get going.

Sir, I refer to Kadhim Shubber’s and Gavin Jackson’s report on that “Moody’s warns on lending crackdown” August 4.

Clearly the “risky” part of the economy, like SMEs, entrepreneurs and “highly indebted companies” are, as a consequence of tightening bank capital requirements, having to struggle more than others to obtain access to credit, precisely at the exact moment when we most need them to have fair access to it.

And the tightening of bank capital requirements, which lead to bank credit austerity, are usually most called for by those who oppose government spending austerity. Just read through the articles of most of your columnists over the year and you will find requests for higher capital requirements for banks going hand in hand with similar pleads of less government austerity. The most plausible explanation for that… is that it is all the result of an unconscious or conscious pro-government political agenda.

I repeat what I have argued many times over the years. Before we raise capital requirements we need to get rid of the distortionary implications of the risk weights. Let’s reduce the capital requirements like to 5 percent on all assets and then build it up over a decade to around a more reasonable 10-15 percent.

In tough times there are no benefits derived from making it harder for the tough to get going.

Also I am absolutely convinced that if banks are not distorted, bankers, pursuing maximizing the returns on bank equity, are much more able to allocate credit efficiently than government bureaucrats.

But, if bank regulators absolutely must distort, in order to show us they earn their salaries, then at least let us ask them to distort in favor of something more productive than keeping banks from failing. 

For instance let them authorize slightly lower capital requirements based on job-creation and earth sustainability ratings… so that banks earn slightly higher risk adjusted returns on equity funding what we believe should be funded, and not like now, earning much higher risk adjusted returns on equity when funding what is ex ante perceived as safe… like AAA rated securities were… like Greece was.

@PerKurowski