nep-cul New Economics Papers
on Cultural Economics
Issue of 2013‒11‒29
seven papers chosen by
Roberto Zanola
University Amedeo Avogadro

  1. Cultural history: disciplinary borderlands in the time of border-scrapping By Irina Savelieva
  2. Creativity as an integral element of social capital and its role for economic performance By Westlund , Hans; Andersson, Martin; Karlsson, Charlie
  3. The endogenous formation of an environmental culture By Ingmar Schumacher
  4. Ideology and Online News By Matthew Gentzkow; Jesse M. Shapiro
  5. Document preservation policy in Russian imperial universities By Elena Vishlenkova
  6. Do Lead Articles Signal Higher Quality in the Digital Age? Evidence from Finance Journals By David Michayluk; Ralf Zurbruegg
  7. More Time Spent on Television and Video Games, Less Time Spent Studying? By NAKAMURO Makiko; MATSUOKA Ryoji; INUI Tomohiko

  1. By: Irina Savelieva (National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia). Poletaev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities (IGITI). Director)
    Abstract: The paper analyzes the objects, concepts and methods of cultural history / histoire culturelle / Kulturgeschichte / kulturnaya istoriya, a modern historical subdiscipline that exists in different national historiographical traditions. This subdiscipline’s objects of study, such as social institutions, social networks, daily interactions, childhood, cultural memory, corporality, etc., lie in a borderland. Therefore, the paper focuses on interdisciplinary interaction in relation to history and raises the question of the institutional boundaries of disciplines.
    Keywords: History, culture, cultural history, neue Kulturgeschichte, histoire culturelle, theory, research method, interdiscipilnarity, interdisciplinary object of study, institutional boundaries of disciplines, axiomatic core.
    JEL: Z
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:13hum2013&r=cul
  2. By: Westlund , Hans (Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm & Jönköping International Business School); Andersson, Martin (CIRCLE, Lund University & Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona); Karlsson, Charlie (CESIS, Jönköping International Business School & Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona)
    Abstract: In this paper, we focus on the connections between creativity, social capital and economic performance and growth. Our working hypothesis is that both creativity and social capital influences the economy, both each per se, but also through their influence on each other. We regard creativity as one of the sources of entrepreneurship and innovation (although creativity also can have ‘bad’ consequences if bad actors such as criminals perform it). Depending on the types of networks and the norms and values being distributed in them, social capital can promote entrepreneurship and innovation and thus economic growth, but social capital can have an inhibiting effect on entrepreneurship and innovation. Social capital can contribute to creativity by dynamic networks and/or values and attitudes that promote experimentation, but social capital can also counteract creativity by rigid networks and values that support status quo. Efforts to defend status quo might be creative in a sense, but the creativity that we focus on in this paper, that with positive impact on economic growth, is only found in the social capitals that support economic growth and change.
    Keywords: Creativity; social capital; norms; values; attitudes; institutions; networks; innovation; entrepreneurship; economic performance; economic growth
    JEL: D80 L14 L26 O31 O43 R11
    Date: 2013–11–22
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0330&r=cul
  3. By: Ingmar Schumacher
    Abstract: This model provides a mechanism explaining the surge in environmental culture across the globe. We discuss empirical evidence on the determinants of environmental culture and preferences. Based upon this empirical evidence, we develop an overlapping generations model with environmental quality and endogenous environmental culture. The model predicts that for low wealth levels, society is unable to free resources for environmental culture. In this case, society will only invest in environmental maintenance if environmental quality is suffciently low. Once society has reached a certain level of economic development, then it may optimally invest a part of its wealth in developing an environmental culture. Environmental culture has not only a positive impact on environmental quality through lower levels of consumption, but it improves the environment through maintenance expenditure for wealth-environment combinations at which, in a restricted model without environmental culture, no maintenance would be undertaken. Environmental culture leads to a society with a higher indirect utility at steady state in comparison to the restricted model. Our model leads us to the conclusion that, for societies trapped in a situation with low environmental quality, investments in culture may induce positive feedback loops, where more culture raises environmental quality which in turn raises environmental culture. We also discuss how environmental culture may lead to an Environmental Kuznets Curve.
    Keywords: environmental culture; overlapping generations model; environment; endogenous preferences.
    JEL: Z1 Q56 D90
    Date: 2013–11–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eus:ce3swp:0413&r=cul
  4. By: Matthew Gentzkow; Jesse M. Shapiro
    Abstract: News consumption is moving online. If this move fundamentally changes how news is produced and consumed it will have important ramifications for politics. In this chapter we formulate a model of the supply and demand of news online that is motivated by descriptive features of online news consumption. We estimate the demand model using a combination of microdata and aggregate moments from a panel of Internet users. We evaluate the fit of the model to key features of the data and use it to compute the predictions of the supply model. We discuss how such a model can inform debates about the effects of the Internet on political polarization and other outcomes of interest.
    JEL: D83 L86
    Date: 2013–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19675&r=cul
  5. By: Elena Vishlenkova (National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia). Poletaev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities (IGITI). Deputy Director)
    Abstract: This article is a reconstruction of archival policies pursued by Russian universities in the nineteenth century and their effects. By comparing ‘old’ and ‘new’ archive inventories, archivists’ records and ministerial instructions, Elena Vishlenkova detects sets of documents that were destroyed in the ministerial and university archives. Furthermore, the author explains the logic of keeping certain types of documents and assigning them specific addresses within the archives. The study explains the contradictions that exist in the source evidence as well as in researchers’ conclusions, and presents hitherto unknown aspects of the university culture in the Russian Empire
    Keywords: Russian Universities, the Russian Empire, paperwork, cultural practice, autonomy, identity, corporation, solidarity, profession
    JEL: Z
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:29hum2013&r=cul
  6. By: David Michayluk (Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney); Ralf Zurbruegg (School of Accounting and Finance, University of Adelaide)
    Abstract: Citations are regarded as measures of quality yet citation rates vary widely within each of the top finance journals. Since article ordering is at the discretion of editors, lead articles can be interpreted as signals of quality that academics can use to allocate their attention and assert the value of their publications. Advances in electronic journal access allow researchers to directly access articles, suggesting article ordering may be less relevant today. We confirm the past importance of lead articles by examining citation rates from published papers as well as the wider source of papers that are listed in Google Scholar. Our findings also confirm using Google Scholar as a citation source provides congruent results to using citations from articles published in ISI-listed journals, with the additional benefit of it potentially being more timely since it includes wider citation sources, inclusive of working and conference papers.
    Keywords: Lead article; citations; Google Scholar
    Date: 2013–11–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uts:wpaper:177&r=cul
  7. By: NAKAMURO Makiko; MATSUOKA Ryoji; INUI Tomohiko
    Abstract: This study attempts to characterize the trade-off between time spent on educational activities and that spent on alternative activities such as watching television or playing video games. Utilizing a nationally representative longitudinal dataset, robust evidence was found for a negative causal relationship between time spent on television/video games and that spent studying. However, because the effect size is nearly negligible, the time spent studying appears to be insensitive to these alternative activities. More importantly, this is greatly affected by the parental commitment to a child's study, even after controlling for their employment status and family structure. This suggests that, as compared to intervention to alter a child's learning environment, the direct interplay between parents and children may be a more important determinant of time spent studying.
    Date: 2013–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:13095&r=cul

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