Pot meet kettle

From the Freakonomics Blog, This Is What Happens to People Who Listen to Too Much AC/DC…:

They grow up to write economics papers like this one, which looks at whether participants in lab experiments get closer to efficient outcomes when exposed to one lead singer of the rock band AC/DC versus another.

I hope for this guy’s sake he has tenure.

True AC/DC stories:

1. I had all of the albums (vinyl, not 8-track).
2. Highway to Hell (YouTube link) came in #2 in the voting for the 1981 OCHS class song. The Cars' Let the Good Times Roll was #1.
3. I'm no dancer, but I remember one time in college, at the tail end of a frat party, showing a female student how to dance to AC/DC. I had some moves but went upstairs and passed out alone.

Make sure that you read the comments at the original post. Here are a couple. First, the obvious response (but not mine, the Freakonomics stuff is a serious study of behavior and incentives):

This is not much dumber than Levitt’s research.

Next, from the author of the AC/DC study:

I was curious why I was getting email about this paper. To ease everyone’s concerns, yes the paper is a joke. The paper was written using old data from a grad student studying the effects of different genres of music on behavior (following previous research identifying the effect of different genres on heart rate, etc.; her original interest was on the use of music in behavior therapy). She abandoned the project and has since disappeared from her program. The AC/DC spin was due to a mistake in the protocols: different songs were played in two sessions. As far as I know the grad student paid for the experiments. I wrote this piece while delayed in the Vancouver airport.

Costs to Canadian taxpayers, zero. Making the Freakonomics blog… priceless.

For the record, I’m not really an AC/DC fan. Thanks for the concern Dr. Levitt. I have tenure. And don’t worry, this isn’t my regular line of research.

Rob Oxoby

Update: Don't miss the Freakonomics follow-up post and the comments!

Comments

[Tim Haab]

For you kids out there, a vinyl album in one of those big black CD looking things that us old people used to listen to.

Brings back great memories. My older brother and I got kicked out of our church youth group meeting one night for playing 'Highway to Hell' before the meeting.

We got kicked out another time when he passed gas in the middle of a prayer and I couldn't stop laughing.

We were good christian kids.

[another john whitehead]

wait...The Razor's Edge came on vinyl?