Paris Hilton Effect

It's not uncommon if someone/something is getting (more) famous of being famous, getting richer of being rich. Let's call it Paris Hilton effect, if you will (Well, Fans of Dian Sastro may prefer to use terms Dian Sastro effect, intead).

Such tendency was keenly observed by Sherwin Rosen in his seminal paper, "The Economics of Superstars", published in American Economic Review on December 1981, even when Ms. Hilton was only ten months old. Superstars here may include individuals who work as actress, musician, athletes, academics/scientist, and other professions or may include institutions, organisations, or business entities. Rosen explains why few people earn much share of the pie and dominate the field in which they engage. The superstars do it either by charging higher prices, though their (actual) talents might be only marginal to the next best performers, or, selling more services/products due to the increasing demands for (perceived) "superstars". Princeton's economist, Alan B. Krueger notes that "the top 5% of revenue generators took in 62% of concert revenue in 1982 and 84% in 2003", as demand for "superstar" performers increased"("The economics of real superstars: the market for rock concerts in the material world", NBER Paper, April 12, 2004).

However, I think, the definition of superstars is sometimes hardly obvious or at least, more exact in some fields but is not in other fields. Leave alone the role of crafted campaign to make someone to be superstar. No one will refute that Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and U2 are superstars in music; Sharapova, Beckham, and Rossi are the rulers in the sport world; and no more than five people including Paul Krugman are the top in international trade theories. But, how we can explain that Radja or Peterpan sells more concerts than the real deal ones like Edane, Discus, Simak-Dialog?; how we can explain a popular commentator is cited more frequently by the media and dominates public seminars (which means money) than a serious scientist rigorously dealing with particular issue? Krugman (1994: 8) once said, "neither Robert Lucas, without question the most influential economist theorist of the 1970s, nor Paul Romer, arguably the most influential theorists of the 1980s, has ever appeared on any public affairs program".

After all, we're now talking about the market aspect of the superstars, not merely the virtuosity or the technical expertise of them. Popularity or income may go hand in hand with virtousity, but quite often, they don't. At least, economists, like Rosen, have been working to explain either economic sense or non-sense. In what category does Paris Hilton belong to? We may need not to care about it. Raise your glass and cheers: Long legs, Paris!