An Irishman's Diary

We hear a lot about spending figures at Christmas: from bullish predictions beforehand that retailers are on course for an all-time record to sober reports afterwards that, in fact, concern about rising interest rates caused a slight weakening of consumer sentiment during the second half of December.

But we never hear anything about the effect of New Year resolutions, even though this must be just as measurable in economic terms. No organisation forecasts that the overall success of resolutions will be up or down on last year. And neither are there any surveys in January or February, tracking the consequences of personal reform on the drink, tobacco, chocolate and general indulgence sectors.

I suspect that the macro-economic effect of New Year resolutions is entirely predictable. We know from personal experience that the insane optimism of the first week of January gives way to grim determination in the second week, followed by shameless revision of targets ("I'll only abstain from drink on days it doesn't rain") in the third, and so on.

The industries affected have probably calculated that the public's determination to lead a better life peaks at 2.15pm on January 19th and thereafter collapses like a cheap deckchair. Armed with this information, they can budget accordingly. But the less said about it in public, the better, because self-awareness might just stiffen people's resolve.

Even at the personal level, publicity is vital to the success of the New Year resolution, which is what is known in business as a "pre-commitment". This word comes from the same school that brought us "proactive", and the question of what a post-commitment would involve need not detain us here. The prefix serves for emphasis: the point of a pre-commitment being to write something into the sales contract that provides us with an added incentive to deliver.

The simplest example is a pizza parlour promising that if an order doesn't reach the customer's house within half an hour, it's free. In the case of a New Year resolution, of course, the contract is only with yourself. But it can be useful to advertise the intention in advance, lest the future you be less committed than the current one. If work colleagues don't know you gave up cigarettes, say, it will be so much easier to start smoking again.

That's how NYRs work at a micro-economic level. But it would surely also help to have a macro perspective, reinforcing the general will to reform. As it is, the conspiracy of silence around the subject at this time undermines everybody's best intentions, as the sheer length of the New Year - a whopping 365 days - dawns on us, and the cravings start anew.

The first thing we need is a reliable index, like the index of consumer sentiment. The latter is so sophisticated that, according to a report in this paper last week, "the indicator of overall sentiment [ in December] rose to 89.8, up from 87.9 in November". I'm not sure what this means. But if we can measure sentiment at Christmas, when there's so much of it around, it should not be difficult to come up with an accurate measure of the combined effect of NYRs.

The Reformer Sentiment Index, as it might be known, would survey everything from cigarettes and drink sales to the level of cocaine traces on banknotes; from gym memberships to the incidence of speed-walking in parks; and from the accumulation of fines in swear jars to reported acts of kindness on the streets. Somehow, all this information would be combined on a scale of 0 to 100.

The next question is who would measure it. Unfortunately, commissioners of consumer confidence surveys often have a vested interest in spending. And although New Year resolutions are not all about financial cutbacks - this is a boom month for tracksuit sales, after all - an NYR index would probably require a more holistic approach.

The Department of Health could have a role. So could the man who sits in on the Lotto draw to ensure there's no funny business with the balls. But given the vaguely spiritual element of NYRs, overall responsibility might be a job for somebody like Father Sean Healy.

The NYR agency would begin its work by issuing bullish forecasts every December 31st. Based on such indicators as the number of people who said "never again" after their office parties and the unusually high levels of church attendance over Christmas, it would predict a bumper year for clean living, with record numbers of nightclubs, pubs and bookies' shops facing closure.

An interim report on January 15th would indicate continuing high levels of reformer confidence. Only in the end-of-month report would there be signs of a slowdown, with gyms and Yoga classes reporting a sharp fall in interest rates.

The downward adjustment in self-denial figures would continue in February and March. But the report for the second quarter would be surprisingly positive, boosted by a stronger-than-expected performance during Lent. Then there would a renewed decline in personal discipline until its complete abandonment at Christmas, when it would be time for the annual report.

This might tell us that, for example, an estimated 692.4 smokers stayed off the fags for the whole year; that there was a net average weight loss among dieters of 2.9 grams; and that almost 103 people became better human beings, as certified by a firm of independent auditors.

Then it would be time for another New Year forecast - which would confirm, based on all known indicators, that hope springs eternal.