From ABBA to Led Zeppelin: using music to teach economics
From ABBA to Led Zeppelin: using music to teach economics

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Refugee - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

JEL: e o     

Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have
Kicked you around some
Tell me why you wanna lay there,
Revel in your abandon

Honey, it don’t make no difference to me
Baby, everybody’s had to fight to be free
You see, you don’t have to live like a refugee
No baby, you don’t have to live like a refugee

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Assignment:

Most people interpret “Refugee” as a song about a woman who’s had a rough go of it in life. But, embedded in the song is a message of the role freedom plays in NOT living like a refugee. Petty, in some sense, is telling listeners that freedom promotes a better life. This message is one that is consistent with many of the findings in macroeconomics: more open and economically free societies prosper; societies that are less free struggle. How would you define economic freedom? How does this differ than your definition of political freedom? How, specifically, does freedom tend to make people more prosperous? Finally, what can policymakers do to increase freedom in a society?

[Provided by Scott Beaulier (Mercer University)]

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