Welcome to Beyoncénomics 101.
For our first lesson: Let's say you're Sweden, and inflation has been running uncomfortably hot — say, 10.5% year-over-year in April.
Regular economists might tell you that the way to fix that is to raise interest rates, making it more expensive to borrow money, and thereby putting a damper on demand.
But Beyoncéconomists like myself have a different bit of advice: Just say YOLO, invite the Queen herself to launch an epic global tour in the capital, and vow to deal with inflation another day.
And that's more or less what Sweden did.
On Wednesday, the chief economist at Danske Bank (in neighboring Denmark) said that Beyoncé's decision to begin her Renaissance tour in Stockholm last month led to a surge in hotel and restaurant prices as tens of thousands of fans descended on Sweden's capital.
The economist, Michael Grahn, estimated that demand from the BeyHive accounted for two-thirds of the price increases in the hospitality sector in May, keeping Sweden's overall inflation higher than economists had expected.
Inflation still went down into single digits, to be fair — to 9.7% in May — though economists were hoping more like 9.4%.
"[That's] definitely not normal," Grahn told my colleague Anna Cooban. "Stars come here all the time, [but] we seldom see effects like this."
The swarm came to Stockholm for a few reasons.
- US tickets were so expensive, it was often cheaper to fly to Sweden than to stay in Cincinnati or wherever.
- The Swedish currency is especially weak, giving tourists more buying power.
- Who doesn't want to brag about being at the first stop on the Renaissance tour? And in Sweden, no less!
Beyoncénomics, as a science, is closely related to Swiftonmics. Scholars of the latter field have also been busy chronicling the impact of Taylor Swift's Eras tour, which has similarly turbocharged sales of sequined outfits, glitter makeup and related accessories.
In all seriousness: The idea of "Rockonomics" to explain the economy through the lens of the music industry is a pretty well established concept, coined by the late economist Alan Krueger, as Bloomberg recently noted.
My two cents: If the US economy makes it through 2023 without dipping into a recession, it'll be on the flawless, shimmering coattails of Bey, Tay and everyone attending Pride.
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