When Beyonce launched the solo world tour for her newest album, Renaissance, at the National Arena in Stockholm in May, it wasn’t just a national sensation, it was a global event. Queen Bey hadn’t been on tour since 2016, after the album “Lemonade” was released, and parched fans flocked to the Swedish capital to quench their thirst.
As economic data for May began to come in earlier this week, bringing less-than-stellar news about inflation, Scandinavian economists started connecting the dots.
According to government statistics, Sweden’s annual inflation rate went from 8.4% year-on-year in April to 8.2% in May - a smaller decline that economists had expected, with predictions pointing to 7.8% inflation coming in May. That’s down from its December 2022 high of 12.3%
Some of that came from a 3.3% increase in restaurant and hotel prices as compared to April, along with similar increases for recreation and cultural activities, as well as clothing. In all, consumer prices had increased by 9.7% in May 2023 as compared to May 2022.
“Beyonce's start of her world tour in Sweden seems to have coloured May inflation, how much is uncertain, but probably 0.2 p.p. of the 0.3 p.p that hotels/restaurants added. Perhaps also hiked concert ticket prices (recreation). Otherwise as expected,” tweeted Michael Grahn, chief economist in Sweden for Denmark’s Danske Bank.
“We expect this upside surprise to be reversed in June as prices on hotels and tickets reverse back to normal,” he added.
“Perhaps all that isn’t just down to her as there are other events taking place, but when you think about what was the cause, she is the prime suspect,” he told US media. “It’s not just out of the blue, we did hear a month ago that it was very hard for her fans to get accommodation and that hotel rates went up. It seems to be a reasonable guess.”
Someone tell Bey that Sweden already has a queen: Queen Silvia!