Tyler Cowen did TEDx MidAtlantic in Baltimore yesterday. You can hear the talks online, although I haven't gotten to them yet. He says there's a TED halo effect and the non-high-status speakers benefit from speaking into the same mic as the stars, even if their material might not be first-rate.

One thing I learned from this experience is that if you follow professional entertainers, the "status rub-off" effect dominates the "suffer by comparison" effect. The audience is primed to be sympathetic to you and many of them do not actually know which of the speakers are truly the high status people.

Of course Cowen, New York Times columnist, author, professor and the best economics blogger, was one of the biggest stars there. Sorry I missed it.