David Stallibrass

Shit Richard! I never got this. Fell off the blue sky wagon. Can we do next year? Id love it.

80s Macro: bsky.app/profile/dsta...

Growth: bsky.app/profile/dsta...

Labour: bsky.app/profile/dsta...

Consumption: bsky.app/profile/dsta...

Intergenerational: bsky.app/profile/dsta...

As he says: now that we’ve had some, let's hope that there’s lots more to come.

Finally, Ian Dury (There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards) celebrates intangible capital and personal endeavour in improving life for all, nailing the intergenerational element at 1:32 “probably got help from their mum who got help from her mum.”

youtu.be/Q63UoIPZFe0

…unlike Drake who tells a story of how he started at the bottom.

There are lots of hip-hop-y tracks extolling the wealth of the artist, but I like how Drake gets there by preserving and utilising the social capital of his community and network. 

youtu.be/RubBzkZzpUA

Bruce finally hits my top 3 with Born in the USA. The first kick he took was when he hit the ground, he’s spent half his life trying to cover it up, and the American Dream has most definitely not delivered. You get the sense he’s doing it on his own though…

youtu.be/EPhWR4d3FJQ

Music for Economists 5/5: 👨‍👩‍👧 Intergenerational equity.

The music industry creates rags-to-riches stories and provides the platform to tell them. And for those with less of a growth mindset (looking at you, Bruce), it also creates songs for the left-behinds to resonate with.

Here’s three.

Hon. mensh. goes to Dat. It: explores the socio-religious constraints that lead to bounds on the consumer option set and the subsequent importance of flexible application of trade descriptions to allow innovative suppliers to efficiently meet complex market demands; slaps.

youtu.be/6FYTL8ydERw

And, a personal fave, here’s Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers totally rockin' the diversity of the modern US shopping center.

(though he admits they have better stores in Paris).

youtu.be/56_u8RH4FMs

Less “music” than a sung skit, but Cheap Flights totally nails the adaptive-expectations death-spiral of drip-pricing, up to the point where they have to pay to leave the aircraft at the end.

youtu.be/HPyl2tOaKxM

Lost in the Supermarket by the Clash gets that moment of emptiness when the expected utility of consumption is corrected down.

When you’re standing in the tech floor of John Lewis and realise “none of this will actually make me happier”.

youtu.be/hZw23sWlyG0

Music for Economists 4/5: 🛒 Consumption

There’s a rich seam of music, especially American, protesting consumer culture - though not many of the artists appear to give their music away.

But some tracks engage more directly with our role as a consumer.

Here’s three.

Honorable mention for Dolly Parton and 9 to 5. As my friend Jack says: "I swear sometimes that man is out to get me" is the line Marx just forgot to write." www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbxU...

(though you might think it’s a bit, er, rich choosing B as an example of labour emancipation through growth given she has the economic power to influence the price level of a medium sized nation).

news.sky.com/story/beyonc...

And finally Beyonce with a story of economic growth supports labour emancipation.

The protagonist chooses love over money with a swagger that can only come from confidence in your outside options.

youtu.be/yjki-9Pthh0

Next - Champion - a celebration of the non-wage compensation of a job done well.

I’ve never been snowed up on Shap on the Manchester run, but I have trudged through a million-point-dataset and I like to think it felt a little similar.

youtu.be/vYvZayrdqUU

First, The Chemical Workers Song, a folk classic exploring economic necessity, bounded rationality and the fallacy of free choice.

The haunting “but you go” makes me think of the migrant factory workers while I was in China.

youtu.be/whdzP0GHuc4

Music for Economists 3/5: ⚒️ Labour market

Three songs that capture important elements of the labour market, even if the artists might not have thought of them as explicitly economic.

(Interesting facts: has the wonderful Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals - one in the eye to her father? Also was a favorite track of Patrick Bateman. I’d prefer to think of Hannah Ritchie nodding along as she eats her veg microwave curry).

www.ted.com/talks/hannah...

It’s down to the Talking Heads, with 1988s (Nothing But) Flowers, to celebrate modernity with a full and open heart - the antithesis to Yellow Taxi.

“We used to microwave // Now we just eat nuts and berries”.

David Byrne Loves Growth.

youtu.be/2twY8YQYDBE

But the Kinks, with Village Green Preservation Society, aren’t having any of it. They’ve signed up to anti-NIMBY coalition a half century before todays YIMBY movement.

"We are the office block persecution affinity" cuts hard.

youtu.be/bA5e_Q45f04

Kicking off with Yellow Taxi, Joni’s canonical eco-nostalgia protest song from 1970. It’s a great tune, capturing the rose-tinted partial-equilibrium of most music about development. The kind of middle-class malthusianism that leads to de-growth.

youtu.be/2595abcvh2M

Music for Economists 2 / 5: 🌳 Growth and sustainability

Lots of politics music has a nostalgia, a desire for only pareto-improvements. This comes out strongly in music on growth and sustainability.

Honorable mention goes to Bruce Springsteen’s My Hometown. It's good, but like much of Bruce he never quite rises above moaning about the jobs going south. And it’s never going to fill a dancefloor. Not that I visit dancefloors much anymore. Other than the one in my kitchen.

(not that I agree with him that much, mind you. There's a chunk of economic xenophobia and desire for autarky that is perhaps ostensibly understandable but probably isn't born out by the facts).

B Movie, by Gill-Scott Heron, slows the music down to make space for ruminations on the social, political, and economic drivers of early 80s US policy. What it lacks in forward-looking policy proposals, it makes up for in the breadth of the backward looking analysis.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSOp...

Let The Dollar Circulate by Billy Paul builds on the musical and economic theme. This time with a very practical policy suggestion to alleviate the economic difficulties of the songs’ protagonist - monetary loosening.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntPe...

Money’s Too Tight To Mention, a total stomper by The Valentine Brothers, focusses on the personal impact of monetary tightening. It's good, has a reference to Reaganomics, but never transcends being merely a forceful depiction of being on the sharp end of inflation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opys...

Music for Economists 1 / 5: 〽️ 80s US macro policy.

80s US Macro Policy, with it's politics and pain, produced a rich vein of popular music. Much of it combined heart, head, and a banging beat.

My inaugural bsky thread is a journey of Music For Economists - 3 tracks around 5 different themes.

〽️ 80s US macro policy
🌳 Growth and sustainability
⚒️ Labour market
🛒 Consumption
👨‍👩‍👧 Intergenerational equity

Play list is here: open.spotify.com/playlist/6Ye...?