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The Rock Star theory of rising inequality and development successes

By William Easterly | Published November 13, 2010

from Alan Krueger’s study of “Rockonomics”

Top 1% Rock Stars are getting more and more of Rock Income.

The explanation? Cheaper audio equipment means top stars can capture more of the market. Why listen to the second-rate stars when the first-rate produce an unlimited number of recordings for you to listen to them? (And then you want to go to their concerts too?)

Does this have something to do with the general rise in inequality in the US? In the world?

Are rock stars also a good analogy for other development successes? Stay tuned.

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5 Comments

  1. Greg Ransom wrote:

    I thought that second chart was a chart of the decline of the quality of MUSIC over the last 2 decades.

    Posted November 13, 2010 at 8:47 pm | Permalink
  2. Laura @TexasinAfrica wrote:

    And yet I never go to concerts by top stars. Their music is bland and boring and so homogenized as to be not worth $100 to me.

    Posted November 13, 2010 at 10:27 pm | Permalink
  3. Trent Eady wrote:

    Wait, is rock even still around?

    Posted November 14, 2010 at 11:33 am | Permalink
  4. Vivek Nemana wrote:

    Hmm I wonder what the development world version of underground music trends would be.

    Posted November 15, 2010 at 12:40 am | Permalink
  5. Sarah Dillard wrote:

    The economics of the biz flipped–it used to be people gave away performances to sell music; now people give away (or look the other way on copyright violations) music to sell tix. So it makes sense that the top artists are capturing greater share of tix revenue. Concentration of earning power in the top 1% just reflects the relative wage change.

    Posted November 16, 2010 at 12:49 am | Permalink

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