Revealed word-of-mouth demand and adaptive supply: survival of motion pictures at the Australian box office

This study considers a frailty duration approach to modelling the life-length of a sample of 360 films that went into wide release at the Australian box office from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2005. The analysis extends previous research by considering a range of film-specific covariates relating to distribution, production, consumer signals, and weekly performance. In particular, it is shown that film success (defined in a duration context) responds to previewing, advertising, critical reviews, and US box office—but not to production budget, star power or opening-week screens. The study also reveals that it is appropriate to account for unobservable heterogeneity between films in the choice of empirical methodology.     

Peer effects on youth screen media consumption in Catalonia (Spain)

It is well known that young people are major consumers of screen media and that their peers are one of the principal determinants of youth behavior as regards their patterns of consumption and other activities. On the basis of these premises, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of classroom peers on youth screen media consumption. More specifically, it considers the time spent watching TV, playing console games and surfing the Internet. Data are drawn from a single representative survey of secondary school students aged 14–16 in Catalonia (Spain) in 2008. Having accounted for problems of endogeneity, our analysis shows that peer consumption has a positive and statistically significant effect on an individual’s console and Internet use. While the magnitude of this effect is not great in the case of the former use, peer effects are quite marked in that of Internet consumption. Moreover, gender differences are observed when media consumption is examined separately. Thus, peer effects on console use are statistically significant only for boys, while the influence of peers on an individual’s Internet use is higher among boys than it is among girls.     

Financial returns,price determinants,and genre effects in American art investment

Past studies on art investment generally have found that returns are low and risk is high. In this study we find that the return to art investment is more in line with traditional investments and thus the cost for consumption associated with art seems fairly small. Employing a large sample of paintings by 66 American artists sold at auction between 1971–1992, average returns are found to be over 9 per cent and 3 per cent in nominal and real terms, respectively. The model employs a log linear price regression estimated by pooled cross section and time series data, and allows rates of return as well as hedonic values for various painting and auction attributes to be estimated. These include size, media, age of execution, authenticity of the work, and auction month and house. In addition, rates of return are differentiated by artist, time period of investment, price range and genre of the painting. The findings indicate significant sensitivity of rates of return to these data stratifications.This paper was presented at the 9th international conference of the Association for Cultural Economics, held in Boston, May 8–11, 1996.     

Failure to meet the reserve price: the impact on returns to art

This article presents an empirical study of paintings that have failed to meet their reserve price at auction. In the art trade, it is often claimed that when an advertised item goes unsold at auction, it will sell for less in the future. We have constructed a new dataset specifically for the purpose of testing this proposition. To preview our results, we find that paintings which come to auction and failed return significantly less when they are eventually sold than those paintings that have not been advertised at auction between sales. These lower returns may occur because of common value effects, idiosyncratic downward trends in tastes, or changes in the seller’s reserve price.

Price-effectiveness: pharmacoeconomics,value and the right price for HPV vaccines

ABSTRACT

Drawing on a pragmatist approach to pricing, this article discusses the impact of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) in the pricing strategies of pharmaceutical companies. Through an analysis of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, this article illustrates the strategic appropriation of evidence-based medicine (narratives and practices) that pharmaceutical companies have undertaken to enhance the value of their products. While governments are concentrated on the measurement of costs and efficiency (cost-effectiveness), companies attempt to find the threshold of effectiveness that supports their estimation of value. I have called such mode of calculation, price-effectiveness. Pharmaceutical companies engage in different ways with CEA in devising their own price strategies. First, CEA is used as an instrument to raise HPV vaccines as a matter of interest for health authorities. Second, companies produce models to maximise the effectiveness of their products. Third, the expense side of CEA has opened an opportunity to represent some conditions as diseases in order to increase the potential value of the vaccine, expressed in a higher price. Debates and practices of pricing offer a unique opportunity to trace how particular forms of quantification have become the common ground in the demonstration of value in healthcare and the adaptation of companies.     

Digitalizing consumer society: equipment and devices of digital consumption

ABSTRACT

This special issue of the Journal of Cultural Economy focuses on the digitalization of consumption and its social, cultural, ethical, political, and gendered implications. It thus answers the call for more research on how digital devices spread from the purely personal domain to multiple sociocultural domains. Through their use, new cultural practices have emerged between consumers and these devices, and devices and markets, that lead to change, in terms of consumer demand, consumption norms, and issues of ethics, culture, and power. Closely examining the role that devices play in consumption behavior enables us to address the supposed manipulative power of hi-tech companies, infrastructures, and systems at the global level, and the view ordinary market actors hold of digital appliances as empowering tools at the local level. The papers in this volume bridge ‘actor network theory' and ‘consumer culture theory' from the perspective of market ‘agencements.’ Ruckenstein-Granroth and Beauvisage-Mellet, and Arriagada-Concha focus on the device-mediated relationship between large digital market infrastructures and consumer behavior; Petersson McIntyre and Licoppe unveil the societal and cultural underpinnings of digitalized markets. Last but not least, Sörum and Soujtis address the political dimensions and implications of our new digital consumer equipment and society.     

逝川之叹--古代哲人和诗人对时间的思考

(一 )在先秦哲学家中 ,墨子和庄子都正面提出了时间的概念 ,虽然他们并没有用“时间”这个词。墨子所谓“久” ,就是时间的意思。《墨子·经上》 :“久 ,弥异时也。宇 ,弥异所也。”《墨子·经说上》 :“久 ,合古今旦莫。宇 ,冢东西南北。”“久”与“宇”相对而言 ,前者显然指     

Past,present and future effects of climate change on a wooden inlay bookcase cabinet: A new methodology inspired by the novel European Standard EN 15757:2010

This article illustrates a preventive conservation methodology for wooden collections and objects based on the respect of the historic climate, as established by the European standard EN 15757:2010. This requires the knowledge of the past indoor climate that should be kept unchanged in the present and the future, because discontinuities would be noxious for conservation. To this aim, a very vulnerable object, i.e. a wooden inlay bookcase cabinet built by G.M. Platina in 1477 AD has been considered. The paper illustrates the methodology used to reconstruct the historic climate, i.e. with proxy data from 1500 to 1715 and from 1716 to 2009 with instrumental observations. For the present, the indoor climate of the exhibition room and the cabinet response have been investigated to remove the perturbing factors that are damaging the cabinet. For the future, the ENSEMBLES model has been used for a probabilistic forecast of the temperature and humidity over the next century, the sustainability and the potential risk for conservation connected with the expected climate change. This research constitutes an example of a novel methodology based on the relevance of the Historic climate, and includes a synergistic effort of climatologists, material scientists and conservators, to be applied for preventive conservation and to evaluate and face the negative impact of the expected climate change.     

Nd:YAG laser effects on inorganic pigments

The effects of a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser irradiation on a group of supports, painted with six different inorganic pigments, was investigated. The pigments were chosen from among the most utilized on painted historical surfaces: red ochre, yellow ochre, chromium green, ultramarine azure, white chalk and carbon black, and they were distempered with two binders – linseed oil and gypsum – on primed wood panels. The pigments were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Chromatic characteristics, chemical composition and surface morphology of the painted layers were investigated before and after the laser irradiation. Three different fluences were used to detect the correlation between laser parameters and changes in painting layer characteristics.     

Smooth new world: Agency and Utopia

The New World Embassy was created by Dutch artist and activist Jonas Staal and Tuareg activist Moussa Ag Assarid in 2014 as an art installation to represent the recently established state of Azawad. This new state, currently unrecognised, seceded from Mali in 2012 after a brief armed struggle. An analysis of the spatialities of the New World Embassy, and of the region it represents, enables its interpretation as a critical utopia, a heterotopia, and as an example of smooth space. Such an analysis furthermore clarifies the underlying sociopolitical dynamic in the region, and in its newly established Embassy, as the contestation, by the other, of the oppressive geopolitical practices and institutions of the same. Lastly, the spatialities of the Embassy exemplifies a particular mode of agentic worldmaking.     

On the complementarity between online and offline music consumption: the case of free streaming

From a representative survey of 2,000 individuals, we study whether consumption of music through streaming services, like Spotify or YouTube, is a substitute or a complement to physical music consumption modes, such as CDs and live music. Controlling for the taste for music, various socio-demographic characteristics and the usual determinants of music consumption either offline (radio, TV, friends/relatives) or online (online recommendations, social networks), our results show that free music streaming (where the consumer does not possess the music but only has access to it) has no significant effect on CD sales and affects positively live music attendance, but only for national or international artists who are more likely to be available on streaming services.     

Consolidation of paint on stained glass windows: Comparative study and new approaches

Stained glass windows belong to the most precious pieces of art in many European countries. Examples of heavily endangered paint on glass are reported in the literature and mainly related to condensation effects and air pollution, as stained glass windows preferably remain in their original architectural surrounding. Several surface coatings and paint treatments have been proposed to consolidate and protect degraded paint. Very often, the selection of the materials is based more on practical aspects than on scientific research. This study concerns the comparison of some traditional, modern and newly developed consolidants for the preservation of historic glass paintings. Experiments have been carried out with model painted glass samples simulating weathering phenomena of originals. Traditional materials like Paraloid B72, modern ones like SZA (proposed by the Fraunhofer-Institut für Silicatforschung, ISC), and three new consolidants prepared by the sol–gel method and based on different hybrid organic–inorganic alkyl-alkoxysilane systems have been considered. The adhesion, penetration, stability, hydrophobicity, mechanical and chemical resistance are properties and requirements tested to prove their effectiveness and range of use. The three new materials developed in this study for the consolidation of paint on glass have the potential to offer alternatives to existing materials. Nevertheless, further research is necessary before their application in restoration workshops can be recommended. A strategic approach is requested to avoid risks for these valuable historical originals and to contribute to the long-term preservation of the paint on stained glass windows in their original sites.     

Something new: value and change in finance*

ABSTRACT

Ethnographic and social scientific accounts of the financiers that buy and sell companies for profit often homogenize the players in these social dramas, relying on blunt, totalizing definitions of culture or overly deterministic articulations of habitus. This article, drawing on a two-year study of private equity investors, offers an alternative analytic frame for making sense of how private equity people buy and sell companies. It explores the ways in which private equity people make arguments persuading one another and the larger public that an investment is worth making. Important to these arguments are not only substantive content, the evidence that investors marshal to support a thesis, but also reflective evaluation of what counts as good evidence, meta-commentary. It is in these split levels of analysis that we can appreciate the cultural diversity within finance, Wall Street, and investment banking. I will also suggest that understanding how investors are arguing substantively as well as meta-pragmatically begins to outline a useful theory of culture change within the world of investment banking.     

The Itinerary of Commemoration in the Kigali Memorial Centre: On Trauma,Time and Difference

Exploring how the 1994 Rwandan genocide is memorialised in the nation's flagship memorial centre, this article pursues a new dialectic between history and trauma. As I shall demonstrate, the current theoretical model of trauma misreads time and consequently erases cultural difference and historical specificity in the formation of transcultural alliances. In rethinking time and difference in trauma, I develop a new trauma framework that situates the formation of transcultural alliances at the site of difference, which promotes new modes of ethical response and political subjectivity in the aftermath of violence.