nep-cul 2008-01-26 papers

on Cultural Economics

Issue of 2008‒01‒26
two papers chosen by
Roberto Zanola
University of the Piemonte Orientale

The Rise and (Partial) Fall of Abstract Painting in the Twentieth Century By David Galenson
Creative industries By Jeroen de Jong; Pieter Fris; Erik Stam

The Rise and (Partial) Fall of Abstract Painting in the Twentieth Century

By:	David Galenson
Abstract:	Non-representational painting was one of the most radical artistic innovations of the twentieth century. Abstract painting was created independently by three great pioneers - the experimental innovators Kandinsky and Mondrian, and the conceptual Malevich - virtually simultaneously, in the years immediately before and after the outbreak of World War I. It became the dominant form of advanced art in the decade after the end of World War II, as Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, and their colleagues developed the experimental forms of Abstract Expressionism. But in the late 1950s and early â€˜60s, Johns, Rauschenberg, Warhol, and a host of other young artists abruptly made a conceptual revolution in advanced art, and in the process reduced abstract painting to a minor role. The pioneers of abstract painting and the Abstract Expressionists had all been committed to abstraction as a vehicle for artistic discovery, and had believed that it would dominate the art of the future, but since the 1960s abstraction has become at most a part-time style for leading painters, and it is often used to mock the seriousness of earlier abstract painters.
JEL:	J01
Date:	2008–01
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13744&r=cul

Creative industries

By:	Jeroen de Jong; Pieter Fris; Erik Stam
Abstract:	Creative industries are nowadays central in many policies to stimulate the economic development of cities, regions and advanced capitalist economies in general. This paper contributes to the creative industries literature in two respects. First, we empirically explore if high shares of creative industries in regions go together with one particular aspect of regional economic development, namely firm entry rates. Drawing on Dutch trade register data over a six-year period, it is concluded that at the level of municipalities there is indeed a connection between the share of creative industries and firm entry, even after controlling for the sizes of municipalities, and no matter if creative industries are defined broadly or narrowly. Second, the paper analyses if firms in creative industries are heterogeneous in terms of business processes and their contribution to regional firm entry. Drawing on previous work four creative domains are identified: arts, media and entertainment, creative business services and, at the periphery, knowledge intensive business services. After analysing survey data of 4,746 Dutch SMEs, we find that firms across these domains are distinct in their use of the surveyed business practices: innovation, strategy and marketing, and human resources practices. Especially knowledge intensive services firms are deviant. For the connection with firm entry rates, it appears that high shares of firms in the arts and knowledge intensive business services are significantly connected with regional firm entry rates, while media and entertainment and creative business services remain insignificant. Implications for practitioners and future research are discussed.
Date:	2007–12–20
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eim:papers:h200714&r=cul

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