Lawn economics

Weekly Updates

Owing to the excessive demands on an economist’s time, I paid someone to cut my lawn at home for many years. This created GDP (paid employment plus consumption of petrol). A few years ago this person retired, changing GDP calculations.
I switched to a robot mower. There was a GDP contribution in the first year (purchase of the mower, costing what I had paid the gardener over a year). Thereafter, GDP did not benefit—no paid activity, with freely generated solar electricity powering the robot.
This domestic capital for labor substitution will become more common as populations age, but makes GDP less relevant to living standards. I create a broadly similar living standard—a mown lawn—without creating GDP. However, the mower did not always follow Asimov’s second law of robotics (obey orders). I periodically have to reset the mower, costing me leisure time. Fortunately, the mower has to date shown no sign of breaking Asimov’s first law (do no harm to humans).
New robot technology has evolved further—lasers and AI-assisted onboard cameras reduce the need to reset. Upgrading the mower would improve productivity and restore some minutes of my leisure time. However, from an economic perspective, the productivity gains of operating the mower would go unrecorded and create no disinflationary impulse.