Cooking KOLs' economic contributions

   A side effect of the current pandemic is that people spend much more time at home - some jobs are banned and more people work from home. As a result, people watch TV and use social medias more frequently. As the time for staying home is longer and eating out is inconvenient, people also more often cook at home. Cooking KOLs (key opinion leaders) are those who teach how to cook in social medias. Due to the phenomenon above, it is no wonder that they become more popular, and more people become these KOLs.
   Of course, these KOLs have contributed to our economies. They are doing something valuable. As such, there must be a contribution from them. But how is it counted? In GDP, these contributions will be counted if, say, they earn an income from the social media, which will share the advertisement or subscription fee generated from them.
   Thus, pandemic generates new values to GDP. Nonetheless, the new values are generated at an expense: if dinning out is convenient, people may not cook at home and watch the KOLs' cooking shows. So, there must be a loss in GDP associated with these new values. Overall, is there a net gain or net loss in value? It should not be difficult to convince you that a net loss is resulted. The pandemic chilling effects on economic activities are so big that everyone feels it while KOLs' charm may not be felt by many. It is unlikely that the latter can dominate the former in values.
   From an economics viewpoint, the net loss will only be under-estimated by GDP. As mentioned in my past post, specialization and trades enable greater value generation. Retreating from restaurant and returning to self-cooking is actually a reverse process of this value generation. Why do people dine out? Perhaps they are not good at cooking. Perhaps they have a more urgent (and valuable) work to do. If people are allowed to concentrate on the non-cooking job, they can generate more values to the economies than self-cooking. But they can't (due to pandemic). The value lost due to a breakdown of specialization and trade is not simply about revenue reduction of restaurants that exceeds the gain of KOLs' revenue.
   Having said that, the value of KOLs may also be under-estimated if only social media revenues are counted as their contributions. Economists know that GDP is an imperfect measurement of economic values. Notably, any household productions are not counted. Only market activities are counted. For example, a housewife cooks at home, however good, will not be counted in GDP, except for the cost of materials incurred. But when she works for a restaurant as a chef, her products will be counted although she may produce the same food as at home. GDP in itself ignores certain economic values, such as household outputs. In a way, KOLs simply bring certain values to the fore. Some KOLs may already be a housewife and now her social media revenue may simply reflect part of her original economic contribution - not counted in GDP without the media but counted with the media.
   Well, if household output values are ignored in GDP, and now more household production (self-cooking, etc) is made, this simply makes GDP even less accurate as a measurement of the economic values generated in a society. Suppose GDP value is Y, and household output value is H. With pandemic, we know Y decreases, say, to Y'. Meanwhile, household output increases, say, to H'. Then, is overall value increased or decreased by the pandemic? Is Y+H higher or lower than Y'+H' when Y>Y' but H<H'?
   This seems to be a question not answerable without some empirical measurements of H and H'. But I will say, despite not an accurate measurement, the answer should be Y+H>Y'+H'. In other words, the value loss in marketable activities (Y>Y') should outweigh the value gain in household outputs (H<H'). Why? The logic is the same: specialization enables more values to be generated. Of course, someone may be good at cooking. They now produce more H' (>H). They may also enjoy acting as a KOL. But this is not a result of 100% free choice. Pandemic disables some works to be done normally and so they cook more, or even become KOLs. However, if this is a way that he/she thinks that's the best choice for him/her, he/she should have chosen to do so even before the pandemic. Pandemic restricts free choice instead of enhancing it. It prevents the best option, and the highest-value option, from being chosen. That's why I believe overall value must decrease.