ON THE EFFICIENCY OF AC/DC: BON SCOTT VERSUS BRIAN JOHNSON
ROBERT J. OXOBY, Department of Economics, University of Calgary, 2500 University, Drive NW, Calgary, AB Canada T2N1N4. Phone 403 220 2586, Fax 403 282 5262, E-mail [email protected]
We thank Steven Levitt for his support and popularization of this research (see, for example, Levitt, 2007). We thank Nathan Berg, Gary Charness, Bill Harbaugh, and Kendra McLeish for valuable suggestions and comments. We also thank a delayed Air Canada flight and a bar in the Vancouver airport for providing the time, space, and resources necessary to pursue this research. All errors are attributable to Air Canada.
Abstract: We use tools from experimental economics to address the age-old
debate regarding who was a better singer in the band AC/DC. Our results
suggest that (using wealth maximization as a measure of "better")
listening to Brian Johnson (relative to listening to Bon Scott)
resulted in "better" outcomes in an ultimatum game. These results may
have important implications for settling drunken music debates and
environmental design issues in organizations. (JEL C7, C9, D6, Z1)