Economic impacts of cultural heritage – Research and perspectives

Investment in cultural heritage (and other forms of culture) are often claimed to be beneficial for a local economy, not only in terms of cultural consumption, but also in the form of increased employment and income. This article addresses some methodological questions regarding economic impact studies of investments in cultural heritage projects. Different types of direct and indirect impacts are being discussed, especially how these can be calculated. We also give a short overview over some studies of economic impact of different cultural and/or tourism activities, and the pros and cons of these studies. In a study of the Norwegian town of Røros, we find that tourism related to the cultural heritages in the region contribute some 7 per cent to overall employment and income.     

Netflix: global hegemon or facilitator of frictionless digital trade?

Trade in cultural products has traditionally been constrained by a combination of law and technology. In Europe, digital sellers based in a given EU country are not always able to distribute across borders. In January 2016, US-based Netflix announced an expansion to 243 countries, accomplishing cross-border distribution through business strategy. Changes in law or technology that facilitate cross-national cultural trade have traditionally drawn the concern of observers worried about the cultural heritage—and products—of small markets. The expansion raises questions about what Netflix is doing. Is it a cultural hegemon, distributing US fare into 243 countries? Or it is a facilitator of free trade, making the products of even small countries more available outside their home markets (relative to traditional distribution)? And how does the curated model—which limits the number of movies the platform wants to distribute—affect Netflix’s function? To shed light on these questions, we develop a new measure of the global availability of a repertoire, the value-weighted geographic reach. Using this measure we find, first, that Netflix makes many of the works from a wide variety of countries available in many other countries. Second, we find that theatrical distribution strongly advantages US-origin fare. Third, the pattern of origin repertoire available through Netflix also favors the USA, although less overwhelmingly. Moreover, many countries are relatively advantaged by their Netflix availability patterns. Finally, we discuss some issues related to the Netflix platform, including horizontal competition with other platforms, vertical struggles with content providers (and its backward integration into production), and we speculate on possible challenges for regulators.     

Strontium,a new marker of the origin of gypsum in cultural heritage?

A new possible methodology for recognizing the nature of gypsum in artworks, in particular for wall paintings, was developed. Calcium sulfate can be an alteration product of the calcium carbonate, or a component used by the Artist himself; the problem of identification of the presence and the nature of gypsum could be found detecting the presence of strontium. This element could be used as a marker since, differently from the alteration form, in mineral gypsum simultaneous presence of calcium and strontium occurs. The correlation between these two elements may be recognized using non-invasive in situ X-ray fluorescence measurements. In the present work, we tested this occurrence in various mineral samples of gypsum and alabaster as well in tempera, fresco and Egyptian paintings. Considering the new possible role of strontium indicating the presence of natural gypsum, we expect to provide a valuable tool for conservation scientists, restorers and art historians.     

What price evidence? The ethics of office and the ethics of social science in British cultural policy

This paper considers the use of evidence for government decision-making using ethnographically informed data from the lived experiences of those involved in British cultural policy. It does this in order to engage and extend work that has sought to defend bureaucratic forms of activity. The paper offers an empirical case study of how the civil servants’ ethic of office [DuGay, P. (2008) ‘Max weber and the moral economy of office’, Journal of Cultural Economy, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 129–144] is reinforced by the identity of the social scientist. The use of social science in policy advice is a moment where the bureaucrats are able to distance themselves from political decision-making, thus reasserting an important aspect of civil service practice and identity. However, as the latter part of the article illustrates, the dynamics of cultural policy-making, in particular the use of economics, situate the role of social science as paradoxical. It is both supportive and corrosive of the bureaucratic ethic. This paradox is the basis for a critical perspective on the ethic of office as deployed in contemporary government.     

Why has cultural economics ignored copyright?

My stance is that copyright policy should be viewed as part of cultural policy; cultural economists have had a great deal to say about subsidy and cultural policy but very little about copyright, though cultural economics is well placed to analyse copyright as an incentive to creativity in the creative industries because of its understanding of cultural policy and of artists’ labour markets. The article contrasts subsidy and copyright as policy tools and briefly discusses two current policy problems in relation to copyright—regulating copyright collection societies and the so-called ‘copyright levy’—arguing that these are the sort of issues cultural economists could (and should) be dealing with.

How cultural organizations’ size and funding influence innovation and performance: the case of museums

Our work pursues a twin aim. Firstly, we explore the influence of organizational size on innovations in museums as well as its impact on museums’ economic, market and social performance. Secondly, we analyse how the (public–private) funding of such organizations impacts innovation and performance. The empirical work is based on information from a survey of 491 museums (British, French, Italian and Spanish). We find that museum size does prove relevant in the commitment to engage in innovation but that public funding of museums does not encourage innovation. We also highlight the importance of the explanatory power of the type of funding on the performance of these cultural organizations. This research also reveals how organizational and technological innovations as well as innovation in value creation in museums enhance economic, market and social performance.     

Comparing cultural heritage values in South East Asia – Possibilities and difficulties in cross-country transfers of economic values

Benefit transfer refers to the transfer of economic values from a primary valuation study (study site) to a site where we need to conduct policy analysis (policy site). Due to the considerable costs and time required to conduct primary valuation studies, using benefit transfers to estimate the values for sites not yet valued is likely to attract policy interest. While benefit transfer is being increasingly applied in studies on environmental goods, its application in the field of cultural heritage resources is rare. The unique nature of these public goods, and differences in the size and demographic characteristics of the affected populations lead to a significant risk of benefit transfer providing irrelevant estimates for cultural heritage. In this study, we compared the results of two contingent valuation (CV) studies involving historic temples in Thailand and Vietnam, tested the validity and reliability of benefit transfers between the two sites, and explored the possibilities and difficulties in such transfers. We found that the error in transferring unadjusted mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) ranged from 46% to 129%. Adjustments for differences in purchasing power parity (PPP), income level and income elasticity between the sites substantially increased rather than decreased transfer errors in many instances. Function transfers did not perform better than unadjusted unit transfers. These results suggest that there are other important factors – possibly physical, cultural and institutional variables – that need to be taken into account in explaining the differences in WTP for cultural heritage aside from the usual income and socio-economic variables captured in CV studies. Until we are able to identify these other factors and measure their impacts, the potential policy use of benefit transfer in the case of cultural heritage goods remains limited.     

Are workers in the cultural industries paid differently?

This article aims to explore wage differentials between employees in three sub-industries of the cultural industries compared with the main (1-digit level) industry to which they belong. We use data from the Wage Indicator Questionnaire 2001/2002, which includes information on 12,757 employees in the Netherlands. We find that workers in these particular sub-industries of the cultural industries are paid differently compared with their respective main industries. Workers in entertainment and publishing and printing (P&P) are less endowed with standard labour market characteristics. However, whereas workers in entertainment face negative price or evaluation-related effects, the opposite holds for workers in P&P. Workers in IT are more endowed with standard labour market characteristics, but they receive lower rewards for their labour market characteristics.     

The impact of ‘central places’ on spatial spending patterns: evidence from Flemish local government cultural expenditures

Governments often see it as their responsibility to support cultural life and at times spend a significant amount of resources in the pursuit of this goal. The present article analyses whether and how municipalities influence each other in this decision to spend resources on the arts (using data on local government cultural spending in 304 Flemish municipalities in 2002). Following ‘central place theory’, the focal point of the analysis is the idea that––especially for cultural expenditures––large municipalities (and, specifically, ‘central places’) may affect their neighbours’ behaviour differently than small municipalities. The empirical analysis supports this idea. Indeed, we show that Flemish municipalities’ cultural spending is generally positively affected by that in neighbouring municipalities. This pattern is, however, significantly more complex for municipalities neighbouring the 13 largest Flemish cities.

The ‘diaspora advantage’ of Pauline Chan (1956–): from multicultural filmmaker to cultural broker

ABSTRACT

This is the first academic paper to critically introduce and document the 30-year screen career of Pauline Chan, Australia’s highest profile Chinese film director, television actress and media producer. Sydney-based, Vietnam-born, Hong Kong-educated and US-trained, Chan has directed six films, starred in 14 and produced four television series and films. Despite her prolific career, there has been no sustained research on her profile and repertoire. This paper evaluates the evolution of Chan’s career using the diaspora ‘advantage’ as a new approach. Characterised by mobility rather than culturalism, the term refers to the benefits brought by and skills of diaspora groups that have allowed them to flourish as transnational actors able to leverage resources in both their countries of origin and settlement. It begins by elaborating how Chan’s diaspora advantage has allowed her to challenge welfare multiculturalism and extend aesthetic multiculturalism. It further documents her transition from a multicultural filmmaker to a cultural intermediary by leveraging her diasporic advantage across the film sectors in China and Australia, and opening up new industrial routes outside of the confines of policy. Using interdisciplinary methods to screen biography that include interviews with the filmmaker, film archival research, critical cultural policy studies, and studies in Asian Australian cinema and political economy, this paper argues that the new approach of the diaspora advantage turns the deficit associated with the diaspora into a dividend that has the potential to rethink the imaginary between Asia and Australia.     

Quantification of wall surface heterogeneity and its influence on species diversity at medieval castles – implications for the environmentally friendly preservation of cultural heritage

Historic buildings are important for cultural history and provide a variety of habitats for animals and plants. Especially structural heterogeneity of wall surfaces is perceived to support biological diversity. Nevertheless, in traditional approaches goals of biodiversity preservation and monument restoration are perceived to interfere and to be mutually exclusive. As a consequence, priority is often given to constructional restoration accepting the loss of local populations and biodiversity. At walls of medieval castles, including an experimental restoration project where conventional and less intensive restoration techniques were applied, we relate species composition and richness to wall properties. Especially wall surface structure is quantified using a novel approach. The study focuses on lichens, mosses and vascular plants. Boosted regression tree analyses and non-metric multidimensional scaling techniques are applied to detect the influence of abiotic site conditions on biodiversity. We find species richness to be promoted by wall surface heterogeneity. However, species composition is more affected by restoration approaches than species richness. Lichen composition varies considerably while vascular plants and mosses are less affected by wall properties. We suggest strategies that are combining both societal targets, the preservation of historic monuments and of species diversity. Careful restoration is capable of supporting both, the maintenance of cultural heritage and of rare and unique anthropogenic habitats. Wall surface heterogeneity needs to be witnessed for both aspects as it affects both species composition as well as the effectiveness of cleaning methods.     

Culturalisation and devices: what is culture in cultural economy?

Theorisation of culture is often absent from research on production in the creative and cultural sector. Further, cultural production has been largely untouched by the insights of the cultural economy approach. Culturalisation is a means of addressing the question of what constitutes culture and thus a cultural (economy) approach. It is the process by which culture and cultural production combine in the ‘operationalisation of the real.’ Culturalisation underpins much scholarship in this journal by posing the (economic) real as a problem of definition in order to illustrate the operations involved in its temporary resolution. The implications of this position need further addressing. There is a feedback between culture as a problem of definition and a cultural approach. Devices can interrogate the relationship between processes of cultural definition and the conceptual parameters of a cultural economy approach. Workshopping, projects and events are put forward as cultural devices emerging from a 10-month ethnography of literary performance in Bristol, England. This illustration shows firstly, how culturalisation occurs in a designated cultural sector to contingently realise culture; and secondly, the implicit logic of cultural economy as culturalisation, typified by the device as method, so as to open a debate concerning its implications.     

Lead–lag relationship between household cultural expenditures and business cycles

This paper empirically examines how household cultural expenditures correspond to business cycles in Japan. Since income level is among the most important determinants of cultural demand, and income fluctuates with business cycles, examining the relationship between cultural expenditures and business cycles is useful, particularly in discussing income elasticity of cultural demand. The data used are monthly household expenditures for movies, live performances, and cultural establishments in the Family Income and Expenditure Survey. Turning points for cultural expenditures and related indicators are determined by estimating the regime-switching model. The lead–lag relationship between these series and the reference dates of Japanese business cycles are analyzed. The result indicates that cultural expenditures fluctuate cyclically with unstable leads and lags corresponding to business cycles. In addition, cultural expenditures adhere to smaller specific cycles within officially designated expansions, which imply that income elasticity has not been constant during past business cycles.     

‘Then you are making riskless money’: a critical discourse analysis of credit default swap coverage in the financial trade press

Recently, scholars begun to urge an approach to the study of finance that interrogates the accepted wisdom of financial models and practices by examining the forces of power behind their development. Drawing from the field of cultural studies, Hardin and Rottinghaus (in their 2015 article, “Introducing a cultural approach to technology in financial markets”) advocate for a cultural studies of finance, which emphasizes the critical consideration of the co-constructive nature of financial technologies and cultures. This paper builds off that provocation using the concept of ‘rhetorical closure’ (as described by Pinch and Bijker in 2012) to explore how industry media aimed at derivatives developers, traders, and investment bankers worked to define the meanings of new financial technologies. Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines how credit default swaps (CDSs) were presented in the financial industry media in the years 1995–2007, and how this framing contributed to the politics of these artifacts. It finds that the financial industry media produced a discourse about CDSs using multiple overlapping frames that overgeneralized the success of CDSs from narrowly specific evidence and applied constant competitive pressure to adopt new financial technologies. These discourses implicitly encouraged the rapid adoption and broad application of CDSs, thus helping to (re)produce a financial culture in which self-interest and short-term gains were prioritized.     

Do museums foster innovation through engagement with the cultural and creative industries?

The recent narrative on museums as catalysts of innovation and growth considers their relations with other cultural and creative industries (CCIs) to be very important. We argue that most relations museums establish with CCI firms and institutions are unlikely to produce strong positive externalities that make the latter more innovative. To prove this claim, we propose a conceptual framework qualifying project-based and supply chain relations between museums and CCIs as either strong, moderate, or weak links, according to their potential in terms of knowledge spillovers from museums to CCIs. We apply this taxonomy to data collected from 261 Polish museums. Our findings indicate that strong links are outnumbered by moderate and weak ones. We then suggest that the traditional missions of museums, in particular education and conservation, need to be more thoroughly assessed in terms of their direct and indirect contributions in order to fully capture the impact of museums on innovation in the wider economy.

     

The influence of cultural values on U.S. and Danish students’ digital behavior: Exploring culture,new media,and social context

This study explores the intersection of culture, new media, and social context—an essential component of intercultural new media studies—by investigating the social uses of smartphones, tablets, and laptops in university classrooms in Denmark and the US. American and Danish university students differed significantly in (1) frequency of new media use, (2) preferred classroom policies regulating use, (3) perceived impact of use on learning, attention, and student participation, and (4) preferred instructor strategies for handling distracting uses. Danes and Americans also differed significantly in authority values that are linked to students' new media use in the classroom.     

How should cultural diversity be measured? An application using the French publishing industry

Despite the lack of a clear definition of the concept, “cultural diversity” has remained a core issue for more than a decade (WTO, UNESCO, etc.). The aim of this paper is to begin to fill this gap. We argue that cultural diversity is a multi-dimensional concept and that accurate metrics must rely on three criteria: variety, balance and disparity. We also stress that supplied and consumed diversity have to be distinguished. We apply this set of multiple measures of diversity to publishing data for France over the period 1990–2003. Our main result is that the situation of the publishing industry in terms of cultural diversity is highly dependent on the dimension considered. Hence, diversity increases when variety is the sole consideration, whereas taking balance or disparity into account leads to the opposite conclusion. This issue raises a series of questions about the use of diversity measures in a policy debate concerned with furthering cultural diversity.

Doing “indigenous” ethnography as a cultural outsider: Lessons from the Four Seasons

This piece narrates the author's experience with González's Four Seasons of Ethnography framework as an ethnographer-in-training in an advanced field research methods course conducted in a small Rarámuri village in the Copper Canyon of Mexico. Three core elements emerged as the narrative's focal interest: the nature-based logic of the Four Seasons framework, the tensions between indigenous child-rearing practices and modernizing influences among the Rarámuri, and the problematic of conducting indigenously grounded research in a community not one's own. Learnings highlight the unique oeuvre lent by the “Four Seasons” framework and its potential for transforming knowledge production about the “other” within the academy and beyond.