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Music industry in uproar over UNC research

newsobserver.com: "Koleman Strumpf, associate professor of economics at UNC-Chapel Hill, finished a paper last month that was sure to bore.

The title, 'The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis,' was enough to send laymen scampering. The mathematical formulas, tables and appendices would lure only other academics, he figured.

He was wrong.

The paper lit the fuse on a volatile topic, music downloading, and touched off a firestorm of controversy. Strumpf, 35, and a Harvard University colleague concluded that online file sharing doesn't hurt music sales, contrary to contentions of the nation's recording industry executives.

The industry's trade group began a counteroffensive, blasting the paper as incomplete and flawed"

Koleman S. Strumpf
HOMETOWN: Philadelphia
AGE: 35
TITLE: Associate professor of economics, UNC-Chapel Hill
EDUCATION: Ph.D., economics, MIT, 1995
A.B. with honors and distinction, economics, Stanford University, 1990
B.S. with honors, biology, Stanford University, 1990
Phi Beta Kappa, 1989
RESEARCH: Currently focuses on the economics of crime, such as illegal sports bookmaking and peer-to-peer file transfer networks. He has also written papers on government decentralization, historical betting on presidential elections, political economics, local government behavior and health economics.

To read Strumpf's paper, 'The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales, An Empirical Analysis,' visit his Web site at
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar
Click on 'Working Papers' in the left margin.

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