From today’s Asahi print edition -- According to estimates released on Monday (01/24/05) by Dai-ichi Life Economic Research Institute, 2005 national pollen count predictions could have a 0.6 per cent drain in year on year GDP growth for the first three months of 2005.
Apparently, when a very cool summer is followed by a very hot one, there is a greater likelihood of high pollen count in spring of the following year. This last occurred in the 93, 94, and 95, and is expected to be repeated this coming spring. The Ministry of the Environment has forecast the pollen this year could be 17 times as high in Tokyo, and as much as 31 times as high in Osaka.
So what’s the connection here? A cynical reader who has spent a summer in Japan might ask, but what about all the face masks and anti-histamine sales? Won’t that contribute to GDP growth?
Not so says Dai-ichi. Although they calculated a “special hay fever demand” of perhaps 63.9 billion yen, it will be far outweighed by the expected loss in leisure spending, less shopping and eating out, and a decline in various other outdoor/external activities resulting from the high pollen count.
Here’s the breakdown of the numbers provided by Dai-ichi (I’m not making any of this up):
- Last summer was 1.45C degrees hotter than average, so real personal consumption for January through March 2005 will be 0.7 per cent lower than average, or about 533.9 billion yen.
- Additionally, because last summer was 2.05C degrees hotter than the previous summer, the fall in real personal consumption will a full one per cent less than in 2004, bringing the entire total fall in consumption to 754.9 billion yen, or six tenths of a per cent of GDP for January through March 2005.
And here're the figures to back this up:
# posted by Saru : 2:12 PM
