The Dismal Science

Here's my idea for a good earned media hook.

Economics is an odd science in that systems can be observed and hypotheses formed, but unlike the other sciences, there's not an easy way to actually conduct experiments to test those hypotheses.

It would be interesting if there were a way to isolate portions of SL and impose changes to the economy and then observe the resulting shifts to see if they are as anticipated or at least postulated in macro-economics textbooks. You could then compare the results with rest of the SL community, which would be your control group.

I'm thinking along the lines of applying some unique demand side or supply side pressures to see their expansionary influences, or to create regional currencies to test theories about depressed areas suffering when their money is taken out of the community, or tracking L$ (if possible) to see if policies that reduce tax burdens on the wealthy ever do benefit the poor through the trickle-down effect.

Thinking about this though, one challenge is the fact that SL is not a closed system, since L$ are probably converted to real $ and frequently spent elsewhere.

Whatever the case, this would be interesting on its own, but even moreso if the results ran counter to (or even right in line with) some accepted axiom of economics. The best way to do it would be to collaborate with some university, and maybe make it part of an undergrad or graduate project.

As a PR professional myself, I know that the WSJ or Business Week would eat this up.

C. Churchill

Actually, the SF Chronicle wrote such a story about economic experimentation in MMOGs recently: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/01/BUGQADVKFD1.DTL

And while SL was featured in the article, we weren't considered a good candidate for that type of experimentation for just the reasons you suggest - the open-endedness of the world. I can't imagine that we would ever try to shut a part of the world down and impose artificial constraints upon residents.

Still, an interesting angle. Keep them coming!

Thanks,
Catherine