Welcome to the Econ Stack, your friendly econ newsletter, that puts its sub-woofer at full blast when enjoying a peppy Punjabi number, and then seeks economics wisdom within the words that lay between those bhangra beats.
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I recently discovered the song ‘Lehnga’ by Jass Manak. It is safe to say that I loved it! Besides being an impossibly catchy song (as evidenced by the 1.6 BILLION views it has on YouTube), I found the lyrics rather fascinating, not least because Jass seems to be singing lines that are ostensibly written from a female POV. It is an interesting framing and challenge to gender norms, but more fascinating is what the song seems to want to convey at its core. It somehow ends up giving us valuable insights into conspicuous consumption, our marginal propensity to consume, the hedonic treadmill, and the true meaning of happiness.
Let me explain why I thought so.
The song opens with the lines:
Ikko heel de naal main kateya ek saal ve / Mainu kade taan lai jaaya kar tu shopping mall ve
Mere naal diyan sab parlour sajdiyan rehndiyan / Haye highlight kara de mere kaale baal ve
which roughly translate to - I have spent a whole year with the same pair of heels, take me to the shopping mall sometime, the friends with me are all going to the salon, take me also out to get my hair highlighted. It clearly is someone’s significant other complaining to their lover that their consumption has not been what it used to be. Interestingly, both items mentioned here are not exactly necessities, and the functional part of their demand is not the key reason for their utility. These are what Thorsten Veblen in his 1899 treatise “The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions” called items of ‘Conspicuous Consumption’ (later named Veblen goods after the economist), consumed not just for their own utility but also for some sort of social cachet, something modern economists and social commentators have dubbed the “keeping up with the Jonses” effect. Now, that by itself, may sound like a vain refrain, but before you can dismiss the song as a cliched set of stereotypes, the next line kicks in and opens up a whole new perspective:
Ve kithon saja tere layi saare suit purane aan / Haye purane aan. Mainu lehenga, Mainu lehenga lai de mehanga ja marjaaneya
Ehne paise dass tu kithe lai ke jaane aan
“All my outfits are old now, what do I adorn myself for you in, why don’t you get me an expensive new outfit, tell me what are you going to do with so much of this money anyway?” The conversation now seems to shift to the marginal propensity to consume (MPC), a concept that John Maynard Keynes talked about in his seminal “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”. He posited that as income increases, the consumption increases but not by as much as the increase in income. That seems to be the lament of the significant other in Jass’s words here too, because clearly they are from a well-off household (in terms of income) and the grudge seems to be that the primary earner seems to be ‘hoarding’ all that extra income (“what will you do with all that money”). And the very next line then exposes the double standards of the primary income earner, throwing the accusatory:
Yaaran utton note udauna rehna ae / Meri vaari batua khaali kehna ae
“When it comes to you spending on your friends, there always seems to be plenty, but when I ask, the refrain is that your wallet’s empty”.
Consumption increases with income for two reasons - there is lifestyle inflation, that is seeking better goods and services in the same category (for example, buying a more expensive shampoo, or wearing a fancier shirt), which is partially driven by the keeping up with the Joneses instinct, and just being able to do more things to derive (extra) utility from (say, taking a holiday just to go bungee jumping). Economists generally assume that the consumer is trying to maximise their utility, and material goods are one way to do that. There is a fancier name for all of this - the hedonic treadmill. The idea is that with increase in income, an increase in consumption may improve material well being, but levels of happiness remains the same. In other words, wealth cannot always buy happiness, or more marginal happiness, at any rate.
And that is where I think “Lehnga” hits its high point with the next line that truly lays bare the crux of the problem the lover is pleading their significant other to address
Movie lai ja ya kol mere beh ja / Do dil diyan tu vi keh ja
Main vi dil de haal sunane aan / Mainu lehenga lai de mehanga ja marjaaneya
Ehne paise dass tu kithe lai ke jaane aan
The request here to “take me to a movie, and sit with me, so that you can tell me what you are going through, and so can I” puts the request for the “mehanga lehenga” in a whole new light. The demand for extra material well being is actually a cry for true happiness - the little things that make life worthwhile, for example, just a simple act of companionship and sharing a heart to heart conversation. That is perhaps the reason why even a Harvard study found that beyond a point, money cannot really buy any form of happiness. In another paper “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right” Elizabeth Dunn (University of British Columbia), Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson (Harvard University) had pointed out that, “the relationship between money and happiness is surprisingly weak, which may stem in part from the way people spend it”.
The upshot from all of this, and listening to Lehnga about 200 times, is that, trying to generate more income, and using that to consume more itself is not bad per se, but there needs to be balance in the tradeoff between leisure (when the consumption, especially the non-subsistence part of it can be done) and work (which generates the income for consumption). Neither extreme (spending too much, or an MPC of 1, nor spending too little, an MPC close to zero) is desirable, or practical no matter where one is on the income scale. As the significant other berates their lover at the end of the song for ostensibly having an MPC of zero:
Tu kanjoos ae, ve poora makhi choos ae / Nature to nirra khadoos hai
Ve kade hass leya kar dubjaaneya
“You are too frugal, an outright miser, and your personality is gruff too, why don’t you smile and laugh sometime” ending with the refrain:
Ehne paise dass tu kithe lai ke jaane aan
Keynes in 1930 in his essay ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’ had famously predicted that “people would experience great difficulty filling their days once productivity increases eliminated the necessity to spend more than a token amount of time working.” Sadly, that economic future seems to have not arrived for a majority of us, as everyone seems to be working ever longer and stressful hours, no matter the industry.
And that is the tension that seems to reflect itself under the surface of those lyrics in Lehnga. Perhaps that is why, another Punjabi singer, Maninder Buttar, sang:
Kaade pyar vi karlein yaara kamm tah hunde hi rahne
(Spare some time to love as well, work will keep happening).
That’s it for this issue of The Econ Stack! Until next time please take care of yourselves, balance your MPC to the ideal level, and let us know if you find any econ wisdom hidden in your favourite Punjabi banger.
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