Innovation and diversity in the digital cultural and creative industries

Journal of Cultural Economics - The cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are increasingly being recognised in South Africa, as in other countries, as wealth-creating, given appropriate...     

European cultural statistics in a comparative perspective: index of economic and social condition of culture for the EU countries

In the article, we present the construction of an index of economic and social condition of culture using datasets of Eurostat’s Cultural Statistics Pocketbooks from 2007 and 2011 and Eurostat’s COFOG data. The datasets allow us a broad perspective over a set of more than 200 variables in 12 domains for the EU-27 member states. Using high-dimensionally adjusted factor analysis (Metropolis–Hastings Robbins–Monro algorithm), we construct an index and determine a set of its several dimensions (as seen from the cultural statistics viewpoint). Using cluster analysis, we determine the general similarities and differences among the analysed countries and show several broadly different groupings that roughly, but not exclusively follow the divide speculated in some previous studies. The analysis therefore brings a novel and statistically developed tool to empirically follow the changes in the economic and social condition of culture from the viewpoint of cultural statistics, while the clustering of models has important consequences for empirical cultural policy and has to be verified in future studies.     

Diversity in teams and the success of cultural products

This study investigates what is necessary to create successful intercultural motion pictures. We test hypotheses on the effects of (1) the production team and the cast composition (team members’ cultural backgrounds, industry tenure, social networks, education, star status, age, and gender) and (2) film characteristics (set locations, movie genre) on the overall performance of German movies at home and abroad. The empirical results demonstrate that offering cultural familiarity (teams from a diverse cultural background, international settings) provides a sense of familiarity to audiences outside the domestic market and enhances the performance of the film abroad. Yet, domestic success depends on different factors. These issues are underexplored because producers can rarely build on systematic research when attempting to customize films to different cultural settings. The paper shows how to target international audiences more effectively.     

Cultural goods creation, cultural capital formation, provision of cultural services and cultural atmosphere accumulation

The cultural atmosphere in a society is accumulated over time through the consumption of cultural services and is diminished through depreciation. Using cultural capital (e.g., cultural heritage, paintings, music scores), cultural services are provided by the cultural-services industry (e.g., museums, opera houses); cultural capital is enlarged by new cultural goods created by individuals. Individuals’ utilities are positively affected by the cultural services they consume, by the cultural goods they create and by the cultural atmosphere and the cultural capital accumulated in society. In a laissez-faire economy, individuals tend to ignore the positive external effects of their cultural-services consumption and creation of cultural goods on other individuals via accumulating cultural atmosphere and cultural capital. Consequently, suboptimally little cultural atmosphere and cultural capital will be accumulated. The efficient intertemporal allocation can be restored by introducing an appropriate subsidy that not only stimulates consumers’ demand for cultural services and the creation of new cultural goods but also enhances the accumulation of cultural atmosphere and cultural capital.

The cultural entrepreneur and the creative industries: beginning in Vienna

In this paper on the creative industries and cultural entrepreneurship I take my point of departure in Richard Caves’ Creative Industries [Caves, R. (2000). Creative industries: Contacts between art and commerce. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.]. While Caves draws heavily on economic analysis and contemporary sociology in his excellent analysis of these two topics, he does not use the sociological classics at all. The main purpose of the paper is an attempt to remedy this, by drawing attention to the possible contribution that the works of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Georg Simmel can make to our understanding of the creative industries and cultural entrepreneurship. Since this paper was prepared as a keynote address for the 2006 conference of the Association for Cultural Economics International in Vienna, I also discuss Schumpeter’s ideas on art and entrepreneurship, ideas which grew out of Viennese culture.

Rational addiction and cultural goods: the case of the Italian theatregoer

This paper tests whether demand for theatre in Italy is consistent with the model of rational addiction presented in Becker and Murphy (J Polit Econ 96(4):675–700, 1988). Data from a novel 34-year panel on regional annual theatre attendance are used to estimate market demand. Four models are applied to investigate the demand function, and all of these also include per capita income and other control variables as regressors. The first two models are estimated to check whether theatregoers are myopically addicted to theatre. The results suggest that the theatre is an addictive good because past consumption (and prices) significantly raises the marginal utility of current consumption. The third model tests the rational addiction hypothesis, which assumes that future attendance also influences current attendance, whilst past and future prices influence current attendance only indirectly through their impact on past and future attendances. However, our most highly specified model, introducing past and future prices, demonstrates that Italian theatregoers are not myopic but fully rational as outlined in Becker and Murphy (1988). The results demonstrate that the rational addiction hypothesis is applicable not only to “harmful” addictions such as alcohol, cigarettes and drug consumption, but also to “beneficial” addictions, such as theatre attendance. This result has important policy implications because theatre is one of the most subsidised performing arts in Italy; if theatregoers are fully rational, policy makers can influence theatre attendance using alternative policy instruments (price and income), thereby reducing government expenditure on theatre subsidies.     

Economics of cultural tourism: issues and perspectives

The special issue aims at exploring, with an economic perspective, the interconnections between cultural participation, in all its expressions, and tourism organization and patterns with the purpose of understanding economic effects, emerging trends and policy implications. The expanding notion of the cultural consumption of tourists makes the definition of cultural tourism increasingly elusive. Empirical investigations of the relationships between cultural participation and cultural heritage and tourism offer interesting hints in many directions. This introduction briefly overviews the premise of this special issue, the literature and the several perspectives taken by the included articles. Aside from their cultural topics—general, intangible or temporary—these essays all tackle some important economic dimensions of tourism. We encourage cultural economists to invest more in these fascinating areas as more than just intellectual tourists.     

夜色朦胧中的美丽女人?——基于当下中国与英国文化创意产业现状的对话

中国人民大学文化创意产业研究所所长金元浦先生和英国创意多德创意机构主席菲利普·多德(PhilipDodd)先生从国家政策、产业历史、教育、人口等诸多方面就中国与英国文化创意产业的现状及发展趋势展开了富有启发意义的对话,辑录于此,以飨读者。     

Democratizing Decision-Making on Food Safety in the EU: Closing Gaps between Principles of Governance and Practice

Food safety is a preoccupation of the European Commission, but there are major shortcomings in its governance. Reviewing legislation and practice, this paper explores the background of EU food safety institutions, and develops recommendations to make the EU decision process more transparent, accountable, and democratic.     

Music in the air: estimating the social return to cultural amenities

If being around smart people makes us smarter and more productive, what can regions do to attract smart people? This paper considers endogenous cultural amenities as a location factor for high-skilled workers. To overcome selection in the provision of cultural amenities, we exploit variation in contemporaneous cultural amenities that is explained by the path-dependence of historical agglomerations of the cultural activities. To assess spillovers from high-skilled workers attracted by cultural amenities, we use a 1% sample drawn from the population of all West German workers under social security during the period 1975–2010. This panel of individual observations allows us to compare wages of similar individuals who work in locations with different levels of high-skilled workers who are attracted by cultural amenities. To account for non-random selection of workers among cities, we use individual-location fixed effects. Our results show that cultural amenities are an important factor in the location decision of high-skilled workers. The positive effect of the local share of high-skilled workers on unskilled, skilled and high-skilled wages indicates strong and productive spillovers.     

Specificities of the artistic cultural labor market in Brazilian metropolitan regions between 2002 and 2010

This paper analyzes the singularity of artistic cultural sector workers in the Brazilian metropolitan labor market, considering the job satisfaction of artists that Throsby proposes in his work preference model of artist behavior (1994). We also examine the effect of public expenditures on the income of workers in the cultural sector. Using 2002 to 2010 data from the Monthly Employment Survey (PME) and administrative records from Finance of Brazil (FINBRA), we estimate a probit model and a wage equation. In our model, we estimate wages as a function of: (1) sociodemographic characteristics of workers, (2) a variable for informal jobs, (3) the number of working hours, (4) a variable for the worker having another job, (5) per capita expenditures on culture interacted with a dummy for artistic cultural workers, (6) interactive binary variables involving place of residence and artistic cultural workers and (7) the predicted probability obtained by the probit model. This probability is estimated based on the likelihood of working in a creative activity, considering both workers from the cultural sector and other workers, controlled by: (1) sociodemographic characteristics of workers, (2) characteristics of their jobs, (3) dummies for the metropolitan regions and (4) willingness of creative workers to work additional hours interacted with the number of hours worked. Our results show that workers in the cultural sector are likely to work longer hours when compared to workers in other sectors. For our wage equation, the results suggest that women earn relatively less than men and blacks earn less than whites. Furthermore, earnings increase with age and the level of education. Formal workers obtain higher earnings when compared to informal ones. Finally, an increase in the per capita public expenditure on the cultural sector raises the income of workers in artistic cultural occupations.     

The drowned and the saved: the determinants of success in the Italian temporary art and cultural exhibitions market

This paper develops an empirical analysis of the determinants of the length of temporary art and cultural exhibitions. Using a sample of 659 exhibitions that took place in Italy in the period 2001–2010, a generalized linear model with a logit link and the binomial family was estimated. We also focus on the subsample of prolonged exhibitions, using a logistic accelerated failure time model. The empirical evidence supports the relevance of the subject, location and timing of the exhibition on duration; however, differences in the estimated impact of explanatory variables seem to suggest alternative marketing strategies for prolonged exhibitions.     

Why everything has changed: the recent revolution in cultural economics

The internet, the iPod, the cell phone, Kindle, blogs, computer games, and virtual realities mean that cultural economics has changed an enormous amount in just the last five years. I explain and analyze some of the implications of these changes. Plenary address at the 2008 ACEI meetings, Boston, Massachusetts. I wish to thank meeting participants for useful comments and questions and thank Jennifer Rogers for her help in transcribing the talk.     

走读英国文化遗产保护利用模式

正2016年10月9日至29日,应英国东伦敦大学邀请,浙江省文物局组团"文化遗产保护与利用"项目,由浙江省文化厅副厅长陈瑶带领18位来自浙江省、市、县文博单位的专业及管理人员赴英国进行了为期21天的培训。此次培训采取授课讲座、座谈交流和实地考察等形式进行,培训地点包括大学、世界遗产、文物建筑保护管理机构、博物馆等。培训内容围绕《英国文     

The role of cultural heritage in attracting skilled individuals

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role played by built heritages and cultural environments, alongside other locational factors, in explaining the growth of human capital in Sweden. We distinguish between urban, natural and cultural qualities as different sources of regional attractiveness and estimate their influence on the observed growth of individuals with at least three years of higher education during 2001–2010. Neighborhood-level data are used, and unobserved heterogeneity and spatial dependencies are modeled by employing random effects estimations and an instrumental variable approach. Our findings indicate that the local supply of built heritages and cultural environments explain a significant part of human capital growth in Sweden. Results suggest that these types of cultural heritages are important place-based resources with a potential to contribute to improved regional attractiveness and growth.     

Attitudes of the cultural tourist: a latent segmentation approach

As a result of globalization, the widespread use of ICTs, and advances in transport infrastructure, tourism destinations have to confront an increasingly competitive setting. When to this one adds the saturation of some of the original markets, the consolidation of traditional coastal destinations, and changes in client preferences and habits, it is not surprising that cultural tourism is being seen as having considerable growth potential over the next few years. In this context, policy-makers have been striving to better understand the cultural tourism market by attempting to segment their clients so as to adapt their offer to the client’s needs and leave the client satisfied with the experience. Unfortunately, most studies on cultural tourism segmentation have been purely psychographic. While this can help to explain attitudes, it fails to identify, access, and quantify segments, and is of little use for implementing specific strategies. The aim of the present work was to study the influence of socioeconomic and demographic variables (age, academic level, expenditure on tourism, inter alia) on the predisposition to choose cultural tourism (the “culturophile tourist”). To this end, we have developed a novel methodological approach and applied it to the results of a survey conducted by Andalusia’s Middle Towns Initiative. The approach uses the latent variables resulting from a latent class analysis to estimate log-linear models.     

Importance of digital close-range photogrammetry in documentation of cultural heritage

It is an indisputable reality that the most important thing for transmitting cultural heritage to posterity is a sensitive documentation. Up to the present there have been many developments in documentation of cultural heritage by developing technology, and contemporary documentation techniques have progressed speedily. In time, modern methods have become preferable to conventional methods in architecture generally in the existent state and in determination of deformations and preparation of measured drawing projects of historical edifices. Digital and 3D data, rich visual images obtained by digital close-range photogrammetry, and orthophoto images of edifices, are governed and shepherded in documentation and future conservation projects. Also, these methods supply much ease, precision and time-saving in measured drawing projects when compared with conventional methods. In this study, contributions of digital close-range photogrammetry to measured drawing projects were evaluated. A historical building, which had been exposed to fire two times in Konya (Turkey), was photographed and its situation before and after the fire was demonstrated. In addition, the building's measured drawings of facade and its 3D model were completed using digital close-range photogrammetry. The building's present status and its reconstruction project is indicated and how digital close-range photogrammetry contributes to measured drawing, reconstruction and restoration projects is presented. Furthermore, the significance of present-day use of digital close-range photogrammetry in the acquisition of data and preparation of measured drawing projects for historical buildings is emphasized. This study has been completed by photogrammetrists, architects, urban planners and restorers.