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on Cultural Economics |
| By: | Esther Hauk; Giovanni Immordino |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a model of cultural transmission where television plays a central role for socialization. Parents split their free time between educating their children which is costly and watching TV which though entertaining might socialize the children to the wrong trait. The free to air television industry maximizes advertisement revenue. We show that TV watching is increasing in cultural coverage, cost of education, TV's entertainment value and decreasing in the perceived cultural distance between the two traits. A monopolistic television industry captures all TV watching by both groups if the perceived cultural distance between groups is small relative to the TV's entertainment value. Otherwise, more coverage will be given to the most profitable group where profitability increases in group size, advertisement sensitivity and perceived cultural distance. This leads to two possible steady states where one group is larger but both groups survive in the long run. Competition in the media industry might lead to cultural extinction but only if one group is very insensitive to advertisement and not radical enough not to watch TV. We briefly discuss the existing evidence for the empirical predictions of the model. |
| Keywords: | television, socialization, cultural trait dynamics, media coverage. |
| JEL: | Z1 L82 |
| Date: | 2011–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:autbar:868.11&r=cul |
| By: | Amedeo Piolatto (IEB, University of Barcelona); Florian Schuett (TILEC, CentER, Tilburg University) |
| Abstract: | Anecdotal evidence and recent empirical work suggest that music piracy has differential effects on artists depending on their popularity. Existing theoretical literature cannot explain such differential effects since it is exclusively concerned with single-firm models. We present a model with two types of artists who differ in their popularity. We assume that the costs of illegal downloads increase with the scarcity of a recording, and that scarcity is negatively related to the artist’s popularity. Moreover, we allow for a second source of revenues for artists apart from CD sales. These alternative revenues depend on an artist's recognition as measured by the number of consumers who obtain his recording either by purchasing the original or downloading a copy. Our findings for the more popular artist generalize a result found by Gayer and Shy (2006) who show that piracy is beneficial to the artist when alternative revenues are important. In our model, however, this does not carry over to the less popular artist, who is often harmed by piracy even when alternative revenues are important. We conclude that piracy tends to reduce musical variety. |
| Keywords: | Piracy, file sharing, heterogeneous artists |
| JEL: | L82 K42 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2011/3/doc2011-5&r=cul |
| By: | Patrick Legros; Victor Ginsburgh |
| Abstract: | We provide an economic analysis of the static and dynamic effects of copyright levies on hardware. Contrary to copyright levies on supports such as tapes, CDs or DVDs, whose main use is to copy, levies on hardware do not modify the propensity of consumers to use 'illegal' content. They decrease both levels of 'legal' and 'shared' contents, leading to a decrease in the revenues from legal sales for copyright holders. The levies could compensate for the decrease but this would require copyright holders to receive a large share of the levies. Hence from a static perspective, levies on hardware are likely to fail achieving their goal of increasing the financial flow to copyright holders. We also consider a dynamic version of the model where artists are differentiated by reputation and where reputation and sales covary (more reputation leads to higher sales and higher sales to more reputation). Then, even if high reputation artists benefit from higher levies, lower reputation artists are hurt. Finally, we show that when content providers have market power and can choose between offering content at a unit price or through a subscription service, incentives to implement subscription models are decreasing in the level of levies on hardware, despite the fact that subscription services may eliminate piracy. |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/82356&r=cul |
| By: | Donna I. M. Spraggon (Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst) |
| Abstract: | There are more than 100 social media tools available to higher education institutions to reach potential, current and past students. Both students and institutions are making use of social media, however, the latter are typically not taking full advantage of what is available. In this paper, I explore best practices in social media as they pertain to undergraduate business schools. An examination of 20 business schools reveals a large disconnect between social media best practice theory and those practices observed. Building on the identified best practices, I have constructed a suggested model for social media for a business school undergraduate program aimed at recruitment, retention and alumni investment. |
| Keywords: | advising, business school, recruitment, retention, social media |
| JEL: | M00 A20 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dre:wpaper:2011-1&r=cul |