Annie Lowrey has a piece about customer surplus, citing studies that attempt to measure it for computers:
Karen Kopecky of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Jeremy Greenwood of the University of Pennsylvania…tackled the value of the personal computer…they estimated that PCs are worth 2 percent or 3 percent of personal consumption expenditures…a more sophisticated analysis by the Wall Street Journal suggests something like $1,700 [per year].
She also cites Tyler Cowen saying this:
The more we are changing the use of our time, the less we can trust real income statistics.
An interesting point for Cowen to make, given that he recently wrote a book that heavily depends on real income statistics.
And also a thank you to Cowen, who set up two posts with his assorted links. Perhaps he was thanking me for my recent business advice.
