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on Cultural Economics |
| By: | Beatriz Plaza (University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Spain); Pilar Gonzalez-Casimiro (University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Spain); Paz Moral-Zuazo (University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Spain); Courtney Waldron |
| Abstract: | Cultural re-imaging through iconic art museums aims to create symbolic capital for a place in the form of creative images, reputation, and associations with innovation. While literature has long identified architectural uniqueness as a potential driver of brand competitiveness, we argue diffusion of that image is equally important. This work draws upon economic concepts from other cultural industries (such as film, music, and art) to develop a framework for understanding how cultural brands are built: how reproducible images of singular architecture accumulate in the media to strengthen a brand. We then test an art brand´s impact on visitors. This work aims to offer evidence that the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao brand generates tourism to the city of Bilbao. By understanding how iconic cultural structures create symbolic capital, policy makers may better tailor similar culture-led branding strategies to other places. |
| Keywords: | Iconic Art Museums, Image Markets, Urban Economics, Branding Effectiveness |
| JEL: | Z1 R1 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cue:wpaper:awp-05-2013&r=cul |
| By: | Karol J. Borowiecki (Department of Business and Economics, University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates agglomeration effects for classical music production in a wide range of cities for a global sample of composers born between 1750 and 1899. Theory suggests a trade-off between agglomeration economies (peer effects) and diseconomies (peer crowding). I test this hypothesis using historical data on composers and employ a unique instrumental variable – a measure of birth centrality, calculated as the average distance between a composer’s birthplace and the birthplace of his peers. I find a strong causal impact of peer group size on the number of important compositions written in a given year. Consistent with theory, the productivity gain eventually decreases and is characterized by an inverted U-shaped relationship. These results are robust to a large series of tests, including checks for quality of peers, city characteristics, various measures of composers’ productivity, and across different estimations in which also time-varying birth centrality measures are used as instrumental variables. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration economies, density effects, peer effects, productivity, urban history, cities, composer |
| JEL: | D24 J24 N90 R12 Z11 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0047&r=cul |
| By: | Tiziana Cuccia (Dipartimento di Economia e Impresa, Università degli Studi di Catania, Italy); Calogero Guccio (Dipartimento di Economia e Impresa, Università degli Studi di Catania, Italy); Ilde Rizzo (Dipartimento di Economia e Impresa, Università degli Studi di Catania, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the role of tourism in the enhancement of local development focusing on the role of UNESCO World Heritage List (WHL) as attractor of tourism demand. It aims at evaluating the performance of the Italian regions as tourism destinations in the period 1995-2010, using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) two-stage approach. In the first stage the efficiency scores are calculated using a smoothed DEA bootstrap procedure to generate unbiased technical efficiency estimates. In the second stage a robust semi-parametric regression is employed to assess the impact of the WHL inscription on the efficiency of tourism destinations in the short and in the long term. The empirical results show that, controlling for several environmental factors, the presence of UNESCO sites is negatively correlated to the technical efficiency of tourist destinations. Our explanation for such a result is that WHL inscription raises expectations which are not met by an equivalent increase of tourism flows: this has to be taken in account by policy-makers in the design of the local strategies to promote tourist destinations and therefore to foster local development. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Heritage, Tourism, Non-parametric methods |
| JEL: | Z10 L83 O18 D24 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cue:wpaper:awp-04-2013&r=cul |
| By: | Elena Nikolova (EBRD); Dora Simroth (European School of Management and Technology) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of religious and linguistic diversity in a given locality on individual entrepreneurial behaviour, and finds that cultural diversity and entrepreneurship follow an inverted U-shaped pattern. We make three theoretical contributions. Unlike previous research, we are able to analyse both the attempt to establish an entrepreneurial business (‘entrepreneurial trial’) and success of entrepreneurs. Moreover, we argue that the two types of diversity matter at different stages of entrepreneurship – religious diversity is tightly linked to entrepreneurial trial, while linguistic heterogeneity affects entrepreneurial success. In addition, by identifying a non-linear relationship between diversity and entrepreneurship, we put into perspective previous research that is divided on whether cultural heterogeneity positively or negatively affects firm, regional and country performance. We use a new survey data set that covers more than 30,000 households in eastern Europe and central Asia (the Life in Transition Survey 2010). |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, transition region, diversity |
| JEL: | L26 P31 Z12 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebd:wpaper:158&r=cul |
| By: | KUNIMATSU Maki |
| Abstract: | Liberalization of audio visual (AV) services should promote cross border transactions of cultural media. However, because of certain sensitivity in the industry, regulations for foreign products or capitals in developed and developing countries remain, and liberalization is not progressing. This paper analyzes the use of the cluster approach to bundle several related sectors for trade in services negotiations and designs a cluster to liberalize the cultural media industry. The cluster is then applied to the actual regulatory environment of the industry in Indonesia and Malaysia to demonstrate the usefulness of the approach for the liberalization negotiation. The "Cool Japan" strategy, which industrializes the contents and culture of Japan and aims at a global launch, is positioned as an important part of the country's growth strategy today, and a trade policy may accelerate it. This paper discusses the liberalization of the sector concerned which contributes to the overseas expansion of Japan's cultural media. |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rdpsjp:13065&r=cul |
| By: | Popović, Milenko; Ratković, Kruna |
| Abstract: | There are several striking peculiarities of the arts labor market that have attracted the attentions of researchers in the last several decades: first is constant long run excess supply of arts labor; second, artists are more likely to be multiple-job-holders than other professions; third, artists pay significant earning penalties; finally, there are huge variations in artists earnings and huge inequalities among artists themselves. In order to explain these peculiarities, in this paper we developed two dynamic models of an artist’s behavior and arts labor supply. In the first model proposed here an artist is depicted as someone who is hired on the arts labor market and paid for his artistic time. In the second model an artist is described as someone who sells his products, like paintings for instance, on the market for artistic products. In order to make these models dynamic, an artist’s productivity is here supposed to be a function of accumulated human capital of the artist. As a consequence, the supply of labor in the arts market appears as the result of an inter-temporal process of resources allocation. Both models end with the same result: the cost of producing a unit of an artistic commodity in a particular year should be equal to the present value of expected streams of all monetary and nonmonetary benefits generated by production of a given artistic unit. This result appears to be pretty suitable for formalization of several existing hypotheses aimed at explaining arts labor market peculiarities. Especially, by referring to the stream of expected nonmonetary benefits, models developed here are able to formalize the most promising among these hypotheses according to which an artist’s need for self-discovery and self-actualization is the driving force in explaining the oversupply of arts labor. -- |
| Keywords: | household production function,allocation of time,arts,expected benefits |
| JEL: | Z10 Z11 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:83025&r=cul |