Elaine Schwartz manages and writes for econlife, a favorite blog of mine for every day person economic news. The other day, she wrote about “Taylornomics”, or the economics influenced by Taylor Swift.
Taylor’s “Eras” tour generated billions of dollars worldwide. Elaine asks, what do those numbers really mean.
Moving from big totals to individuals, we can see that the money came from each Swifty spending approximately $1,279 on purchases that ranged from tickets, merchandise, food, and drinks, to transportation, hotel rooms, and restaurant meals.
Assuming Miami is typical, restaurants in the 53 cities where Taylor Swift performed 149 concerts, would have seen almost every category increase. In Miami, total restaurant transactions rose by 9.1% while patrons spent approximately 2.6% more. Rather than hard liquor, wine sales soared an extra 12%. However, the big surge, at 27.2%, came from omelettes.
In economics, the Eras Tour is a form of externality — a positive or negative impact of a decision/action on unrelated parties, a shockwave or a ripple. And apparently, one of the greatest uninvolved beneficiaries of Taylor Swift is the omelette — big egg ;-)
In some way, we are an externality on the world around us. As we move through the world, we disrupt sound molecules and photos and thus impact uninvolved third party observers — others. The impact of our movement, we hope, is positive.
In a sense, you are your own Taylor Swift to those of us privileged enough to experience you.
