Which type of artist debuts with obscure experimental work, the genius or the fraud? Kim-Sau Chung and Peter Eso have a new paper which answers the question: it’s both of these types.
Suppose that a new composer is choosing a debut project and he can try a composition in a conventional style or he can write 4’33”, the infamous John Cage composition consisting of three movements of total silence. Critics understand the conventional style well enough to assess the talent of a composer who goes that route. Nobody understands 4’33” and so the experimental composer generates no public information about his talent.
There are three types of composer. Those that know they are talented enough to have a long career, those that know they are not talented enough and will soon drop out, and then the middle type: those that don’t know yet whether they are talented enough and will learn more from the success of their debut. In the Chung-Eso model, the first two types go the experimental route and only the middle type debuts with a conventional work.
The reason is intuitive. First, the average talent of experimental artists must be higher than conventional artists. Because if it were the other way around, i.e. conventional debuts signaled talent then all types would choose a conventional debut, making it not a signal at all. The middle types would because they want that positive signal and they want the more informative project. The high and low types would because the positive signal is all they care about.
Then, once we see that the experimental project signals higher than average talent, we can infer that it’s the high types and the low types that go experimental. Both of these types are willing to take the positive signal from the style of work in exchange for generating less information by the actual composition. The middle types on the other hand are willing to forego the buzz they would generate by going experimental in return for the chance to learn about their talent. So they debut conventionally.
Now, as the economics PhD job market approaches, which fields in economics are the experimental ones (generates buzz but nobody understands it, populated by the geniuses as well as the frauds) and which ones are conventional (easy to assess, but generally dull and signals a middling type) ?
Cheap Talk 
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October 19, 2010 at 8:33 am
Andy
Why is the field the right unit of analysis? I think a candidate’s approach to the questions and techniques within her field is more suited to the experimental v. conventional frame.
October 19, 2010 at 11:36 am
Sean
Neuroeconomics is a candidate for an experimental field. While neuro talks can generally appeal to a broad audience, vetting the details requires specialized knowledge, both biological and statistical, not held by most economists. The sets of both geniouses and frauds are non-empty, but some midling types are there as well.
October 19, 2010 at 1:57 pm
The Grouchy Musicologist
Whether this is true in general or not, it doesn’t describe Cage and 4’33” well at all, for two reasons. First, it’s just ill-informed to say that “Nobody understands 4’33”.” 4’33” is a pretty well-understood piece as avant-garde music goes. It’s been written about a lot, and (though shocking to many upon its first appearance) was never particularly obscure of purpose by comparison to lots of other avant-garde pieces of music. Christopher Shultis’s Silencing the Sounded Self: John Cage and the American Experimental Tradition is just one of many fine scholarly treatments that support this point.
Second, John Cage was a well-known and prolific composer long prior to the premiere of 4’33”, and continued to be so with no interruption afterward. It was certainly in some senses a bold move for him, but he was on record as being a particular type of composer by then, and anybody who could possibly care already knew whether they liked the kind of thing he did or not.
October 19, 2010 at 10:29 pm
jeff
Thanks grouchy!
I was just using the 4’33” as an example of the kind of piece that would serve the role of the experimental debut in the model. Thanks for clarifying the actual history.
BTW, the 4’33” example is mine, don’t blame the authors.
March 20, 2014 at 12:16 pm
Tuba
I am taking the risk of binrog and wearing you out with a tedious and long-winding post.However, I feel I am in resonance with many other people who are extremely excited that tomorrow, just tomorrow, we may very well see constantly “That One” on TV in our living room for the next four years.Ah, that’s a wonderful feeling.I do have some comments that I thought about for this topic. But, anxiously waiting for “the day,” I can’t help but to put them in the back burner for the time being. Here, you probably can find some clue about what my dream is. And, that serves one extra purpose in my posting today. A friend of mine sent me the following piece of article yesterday:MY Wife Made Me Canvass for Obama: here’s what I learnedThis election is not about major policies. It’s about hope.By Jonathan Curleyfrom the November 3, 2008 edition,Charlotte, N.C. There has been a lot of speculation that Barack Obama might win the election due to his better ground game and superior campaign organization.I had the chance to view that organization up close this month when I canvassed for him. I’m not sure I learned much about his chances, but I learned a lot about myself and about this election.Let me make it clear: I’m pretty conservative. I grew up in the suburbs. I voted for George H.W. Bush twice, and his son once. I was disappointed when Bill Clinton won, and disappointed he couldn’t run again.I encouraged my son to join the military. I was proud of him in Afghanistan, and happy when he came home, and angry when he was recalled because of the invasion of Iraq. I’m white, 55, I live in the South and I’m definitely going to get a bigger tax bill if Obama wins.I am the dreaded swing voter.So you can imagine my surprise when my wife suggested we spend a Saturday morning canvassing for Obama. I have never canvassed for any candidate. But I did, of course, what most middle-aged married men do: what I was told.At the Obama headquarters, we stood in a group to receive our instructions. I wasn’t the oldest, but close, and the youngest was maybe in high school. I watched a campaign organizer match up a young black man who looked to be college age with a white guy about my age to canvas together. It should not have been a big thing, but the beauty of the image did not escape me.Instead of walking the tree-lined streets near our home, my wife and I were instructed to canvass a housing project. A middle-aged white couple with clipboards could not look more out of place in this predominantly black neighborhood.We knocked on doors and voices from behind carefully locked doors shouted, Who is it? We’re from the Obama campaign, we’d answer. And just like that doors opened and folks with wide smiles came out on the porch to talk.Grandmothers kept one hand on their grandchildren and made sure they had all the information they needed for their son or daughter to vote for the first time.Young people came to the door rubbing sleep from their eyes to find out where they could vote early, to make sure their vote got counted.We knocked on every door we could find and checked off every name on our list. We did our job, but Obama may not have been the one who got the most out of the day’s work.I learned in just those three hours that this election is not about what we think of as the big things. It’s not about taxes. I’m pretty sure mine are going to go up no matter who is elected.It’s not about foreign policy. I think we’ll figure out a way to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan no matter which party controls the White House, mostly because the people who live there don’t want us there anymore.I don’t see either of the candidates as having all the answers.I’ve learned that this election is about the heart of America. It’s about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It’s about those who have worked all their lives and never fully realized the promise of America, but see that promise for their grandchildren in Barack Obama. The poor see a chance, when they often have few. I saw hope in the eyes and faces in those doorways.My wife and I went out last weekend to knock on more doors. But this time, not because it was her idea. I don’t know what it’s going to do for the Obama campaign, but it’s doing a lot for me. -Jonathan Curley is a banker. He voted for George H.W. Bush twice and George W. Bush once. -Here’s my reply to my friend:Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2008 7:48 PMSubject: RE: Why it’s so historical from a personal experienceYes, the piece by Jonathan Curley is a beautifully written and a moving one, it was a genuine voice from the bottom of heart. I couldn’t agree with him more about the hope that Obama has inspired in most, if not all, of us. After eight years of the Bush Administration, all we saw are one disaster after another and declines in many aspects, be it moral-, political- or cultural-wise. This is clearly the time that we need a transformational leader who can steer our country into a new direction. For all of us who are for Obama, the only common thread is voting for the same person, yet I believe we all can relate to Mr. Curley in that we see this is the opportunity that our country can ascend back to the old glories we once enjoyed and be the world beacon of a democracy under which all people are created equal.I just saw somebody wrote this:I heard that Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk, and Martin Luther King walked so that Obama could run. Barack Obama is now running so that our children can fly.Isn’t that a beautiful saying too? Glad we both see what is in Obama and are inspired by the same message of hope and change we can. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me,Ru-Ling -Reply from my friend:You write very well! I thought you said you want to keep working on writing more. Any new development on that path?
October 19, 2010 at 2:38 pm
The Simple Professional » Blog Archive » Countersignaling and Crazy Wisdom
[…] a brilliant article! In it, Jeff Ely summarizes a study done by a few economists on artist debuts, and what kind of […]
October 19, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Leigh Caldwell
As a practitioner of cognitive economics, I’d love your model to be correct (at least it would give me a 50-50 chance).
And taking into account only the returns to creating art, it’s probably right.
But it neglects the cost of creating the works. If it’s more costly to create conventional works than experimental (and, however we judge the quality and significance of 4’33”, it didn’t take much work to make it), then the implications of the model are different.
In this case, a composer with little talent, or little confidence in their talent, is much more likely to select the experimental route. The signalling benefits of the conventional route may be outweighed by the costs of pursuing it.
I’m not saying all experimental work requires less effort than conventional work, but some of it does, and this results in a different conclusion. In this case, two groups will pursue the experimental route: a small number of geniuses with very high confidence in being able to establish the quality of their work; and a great horde of cretins.
October 19, 2010 at 7:19 pm
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March 20, 2014 at 10:13 pm
Losbotijas
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October 20, 2010 at 1:06 am
Les liens du matin (68) « Rationalité Limitée
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October 20, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Signaling and 4’33” | Triple Fire Plug
[…] saw it applied to music and particularly John Cage’s 4’33″. From Jeff Ely’s Cheap Talk blog on economics and more: Which type of artist debuts with obscure experimental work, the genius or the fraud? Kim-Sau […]
October 20, 2010 at 3:31 pm
D. Watson
Leigh is making quite an assumption about the distribution of skill in claiming it’s a 50/50 she is genius.