Mattel’s (MAT) famous doll has been everywhere this summer, dominating the box office with the best opening weekend of 2023 and even getting a mention in the Federal Reserve’s latest press conference.
But the story of Barbie’s intersection with finance news is about more than the industry’s most prominent purple-tied official Jay Powell answering a question about pink attire and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, because both are proving to be legitimate drivers of a resilient US consumer keeping America out of a recession.
“These events are getting more highlighted specifically because of the situation we’re looking at,” Bank of America US economist Shruti Mishra told Yahoo Finance.
“Is the consumer going to drop? Is it still resilient? Those questions are the most important questions leading up to any Fed press conference, FOMC meeting, and just generally for the economic outlook.”
Fed Chair Powell, for his part, didn’t fully bite last week when asked about the impact of Barbie and Taylor Swift on the US economy. But even he noted it doesn’t hurt.
“The overall resilience of the economy, the fact that we’ve been able to achieve disinflation so far without any meaningful negative impact on the labor market, the strength of the economy overall, that’s a good thing,” Powell said.
“It’s good to see that, of course. It’s also you see consumer confidence coming up and things like that, that will support activity going forward.”
Margot Robbie attends the European premiere of “Barbie” in London, Britain July 12, 2023. (Maja Smiejkowska/REUTERS)
And these aren’t just any popular summer events, either.
Meanwhile, “Barbenheimer” — the dual box office hits of “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s biopic “Oppenheimer” — combined for the fourth-biggest overall weekend in box office history.
In the latest release of the Fed’s Beige Book, the Philadelphia Fed highlighted Taylor Swift’s three-night stop at Lincoln Financial Field as a boost to the local economy.
Taylor Swift performs onstage during the Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour at Lincoln Financial Field on May 12, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Lisa Lake/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
“Multiple contacts reported that the amount of money guests spend at their leisure destinations declined modestly in recent months,” the report read.
“Despite the slowing recovery in tourism in the region overall, one contact highlighted that May was the strongest month for hotel revenue in Philadelphia since the onset of the pandemic, in large part due to an influx of guests for the Taylor Swift concerts in the city.”
Analysis from Moody’s shows Swift’s impact wasn’t just a one-off in Philadelphia, either.
Moody’s had seen an increase in revenue per available room in every city Swift has stopped in that the firm tracks through its report’s publication July 21.
Moody’s tracked average revenue per room increases at all four of the cities Taylor Swift stopped at in May.
According to University of Michigan clinical assistant professor of marketing Marcus Collins, it’s rare for a movie and concert tour to have this kind of impact.
With Barbie pink taking over wardrobes and Swift’s Eras Tour bracelets dominating social media, the marketing behind both messages have transcended into a cultural moment. And culture, Collins told Yahoo Finance, is the “most influential external force of human behavior, full stop.”
“The salience of (Barbie and the Eras Tour) makes it so that it’s undeniable,” Collins said. “You can’t not talk about it because it’s everywhere.”
Jefferies US economist Thomas Simons told Yahoo Finance he hasn’t seen anything like the obsession with Barbie and Taylor Swift in his more than 15 years working in economic research.
Simons likens the interest from economists to the rise of social media and the “casualization” of economics, which leads to economists being both more aware of pop culture impacts and more willing to look for them.
And as economists and researchers alike have turned to the data to look for the impact of these cultural phenomena, the answers have been eye-popping.
In addition to the findings from Moody’s and the Fed, recent data from Bank of America showed card spending on entertainment and clothing both spiked the week of Barbie’s release with entertainment sales up about 13%.
“There’s (likely) a Barbie and Oppenheimer effect to play out here,” Mishra noted.
Bank of America saw an increase in card spending the week Barbie and Oppenheimer were released.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
