CNET is reporting that Hoover senior fellow and Stanford professor Michael Boskin will become chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors for Gaia Online; he'll head up the new organization for the teen and 'tween-targeted online world (CNET's count is 2.5 million monthly participants and over 100,000 daily transactions) and provide "ongoing guidance and analysis" of Gaia's virtual economy.
This isn't the first time a virtual world has brought in a qualified real-world economist to oversee in-world transactions; EVE Online announced a similar move earlier this year.
As the CNET article correctly notes, it might be surprising to some to see a man with Boskin's credentials putting his muscle behind the online economy of what is essentially a kids' game. Not only is Boskin an academic, the article says, but he serves on the boards of companies like Exxon Mobil, Oracle and Vodafone. According to his Hoover Institution biography, he also serves "as an adviser to presidents and prime ministers, finance ministries, and central banks around the world, from the United States to China."
"I find it very interesting how many people are willing to spend time" in the virtual world, Boskin told CNET News.com, adding that he was attracted to his new role by "how the economy of these sites, and in particular of Gaia, have evolved; how people are making decisions on how to spend their time, (and) how much time to spend."Essentially, Boskin said, an economy is an economy, regardless of whether the participants are teens in a virtual world or captains of industry in the physical world.
"The fundamental similarity is people making decisions about how to allocate their time and use their skills," Boskin said. "That is at the core of what is similar about them. There's some things we can learn about what (is going on) in the real economy by what is going on in Gaia.
According to CNET, Boskin will retain his roles at Hoover and Stanford -- but it's interesting to see a qualified real-world economist start considering virtual worlds as a viable, informative and constructive professional avenue.
[Via CNET.com]
