The Relationship Between Popular Music and the Economy

Marco Palameche is a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Ocolour in Spain. He and his co-author made a data set of all the songs in America's main singles charts, the Billboard Hot 100, every week from 1958 to 2019. They matched these songs against weekly unemployment claims. And they found that when the situation is bad, people will search for music that express their feelings. But I found the opposite. This is similar to broader findings that during recessions, people might buy or do more inexpensive things that give them a little bit of joy. So given Marco's finding, we have developed a one-off quiz show for Marco and listeners at home. We're