Why the Taylor Swift economy isn't real

STORY: :: Balazs Koranyi, Chief ECB correspondent

"There has been a lot of hype about the massive benefits that the Taylor Swift concert tour will bring to Europe. But there's just one problem: 'Swiftonomics' is not real."

"I decided to do a case study in Stockholm. Stockholm is one of the places where Taylor Swift has already come through. The concerts were in May. We already have some real numbers. And I thought Sweden would tell us if this benefit is actually there. And you know, there is a benefit. Something like 180,000 people attended her three concerts in Stockholm, and that generated about 850 million Swedish crowns of revenue, that would be about $81 million."

"That sounds like a lot of money, but it's actually not. Even for a fairly small city like Stockholm, that's not a huge benefit. It's a good weekend for Stockholm. It's an OK-ish weekend for Sweden."

"We looked at inflation as well. Sure, the tickets cost quite a bit. Hotel prices went up. But once you look at the whole country, and keep in mind Sweden is a small country, no impact at all. And there's of course also a darker side of the economic impact, which is that all the profits made by Swift incorporated get repatriated to the United States. So actually there's even a small drag for Europe because the money that is being generated in these concerts just get taken out of here. "

"So then I thought, let's look at the broader picture, because surely it's not just concerts, we also have the Olympics coming up in Paris. We have Euro 2024, the European Football Championship, going on. Big mega events which are all supposed to generate huge benefits for the people of Europe. I spoke to a bunch of economists and the conclusions seem to be the same everywhere."

:: Carsten Brzeski, Economist with ING

"At local levels, there might be a positive impact from a Taylor Swift concert from other mega events, but when you look at the total economy, you really need to look through a magnifying glass in order to see a significant impact on economic activity and inflation."

"To have a meaningful impact on an economy, what you would need is new money to be brought in, and in this case, it's not new money. It's people deciding how to spend their money."

"People visiting a Taylor Swift concert or going to the Euro 24 or going to the Olympics, they will not be able to spend the money later on. So yes, there might be a very short lived, very brief positive economic impact, but over an entire year it is hardly measurable."