Economics (Taylor’s Version) is coming to American University next semester, with a themed course on the pop superstar.
“Swiftonomics: The Economic Impact of Taylor Swift” was created by Megan Wysocki, a rising junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and School of Public Affairs, and Mackenzie Shultz, a rising junior in CAS and the School of Communication, after entering a student-designed course competition.
Listed under ECON-396, the one-credit, six-week class will take place during September and October of the Fall 2024 semester, with plans to be offered again in Spring 2025.
“[I] just thought Taylor Swift would be perfect because if there is anything I know enough about to design a course on, it would be Taylor Swift,” Wysocki said in an interview with The Eagle.
Wysocki said that Swiftonomics will mainly focus on the Eras Tour – which has become the highest-grossing tour of all time and the first to surpass $1 billion in sales – and Swift’s impact on consumer and media markets. The class will also explore labor- and gender-based economics.
The 50-seat class currently has seven people on the waitlist, according to Eagle Service. Dr. Kara Reynolds, a professor and Chair of the Department of Economics, will teach the course on the pop star’s economic impact.
“We’ve gotten really overwhelming support for the class amongst students who are really excited to take it, which doesn’t often happen with economics classes,” Reynolds said. “This is something that people are choosing to take and I don’t take that lightly. I want to use the opportunity to really show people how economics impacts our daily life and how we can use the tool of economics to make good decisions, as voters, as consumers, as savers.”
In 2022, the high demand for the Eras Tour caused the website Ticketmaster to crash and left scalpers reselling tickets for tens of thousands of dollars. On May 23, 2024, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging it violated antitrust laws.
The class plans to dive into the impact of monopolies on the economy and the role of government in addressing monopoly power, said Reynolds.
“The sale of the Eras tour went pretty disastrously in the United States with Ticketmaster,” Reynolds said. “Ticketmaster has so much market power that they… are charging excessive fees… they don't have to actually spend money on investing in their infrastructure debt to deal with this influx of customers, because there's really no one else, no other competition.”
The class will also touch on Swift’s influence on NFL viewership through dating football player Travis Kelce and economic concepts such as the “winner take all” economy, market power, the role of intellectual property rights and economic spillovers.
Swiftonomics will also discuss how Swift, as a woman, is viewed from both a business and popular viewpoint. Reynolds hopes this class will introduce more female students to the world of economics.
“The course does appeal more to women, and in general, women are underrepresented still in the field of economics so this is also a really great opportunity to target that particular demographic,” Reynolds said.
Wysocki said that she expected the most difficult part of creating the course would be finding a professor to teach the class. However, Reynolds, a fan herself, said she jumped at the chance to sponsor Swiftonomics.
“We knew that we wanted a woman to teach it,” Wysocki said. “Given that it’s a course that’s focusing on a very powerful female and how she's changing her industry, it was very, very important to us that we had a female teaching it that understands that.”
For Wysocki, it was crucial that she designed the class in a way that would “encourage actual participation and learning.”
“In academics right now, in classes, there’s a huge concern with student engagement and student involvement,” Wysocki said. “Are people really doing the readings? Are people being honest and truthfully doing their own work?”
Reynolds said she is playing a “balancing act” between making the course fun and exciting while still upholding the academic rigor of an economics class.
“I think there’s going to be almost a level of excitement in terms of getting a group of people who have a common interest,” Reynolds said. “I’m hoping that because of that commonality, students who might not normally participate a lot in class or feel uncomfortable with talking out in class will feel more comfortable engaging with their peers and engaging with the material, and as a faculty member, that’s really exciting to me.”
The grading of the class is divided into three components: course attendance and participation, discussion board submissions and the final project, an Eras Tour City Proposal. Students will create an 8-10 minute presentation to persuade the city council of a town of the student’s choice to allow Swift to tour there by researching its labor, hotel and transportation markets.
Though students of different majors, such as international studies, political science, business administration and journalism, are required to take economics courses, Wysocki feels that many people seem to “really have some negative thoughts about economics.”
Wysocki said she did not create this class to create fans of Taylor Swift, but rather to create fans of economics.
“Economics are all around us. There is no ignoring the constant economic forces that are at play. You can find an economic explanation for just about anything going on around you,” Wysocki said. “My goal is to help people realize that, and by connecting econ to a subject that people love, like Taylor Swift, I’m hoping it kind of creates that connection.”
This article was edited by Samantha Skolnick, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks and Ella Rousseau.
