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on Cultural Economics |
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Issue of 2014‒05‒04
five papers chosen by Roberto Zanola Universita' del Piemonte Orientale Amedeo Avogadro |
| By: | Luigi Di Gaetano (Dipartimento di Economia e Impresa, Universita degli Studi di Catania); Isidoro Mazza (Department of Economics and Quantitative Methods, Universita degli Studi di Catania) |
| Abstract: | Severe budget cuts in the cultural sectors of many countries have spurred disparate suggestions for alternative sources available to public institutions. Deaccessioning may contribute to guarantee the survival of cultural institutions without serious negative impacts on the fruition of cultural goods. This paper addresses the consequences of a widespread deaccessioning on in-kind bequests to museums, by developing a sequential game with incomplete information. We look at the interactions between a donor and a museum. The latter could be either institutionally committed not to sale its collection, or free to sell part of its art endowment. Our main results show that when deaccessioning is allowed, contributions to museums of both types may decrease. Interestingly, public grants to museums cause a negative externality to the committed museum, which experiences a reduction in donations. Results provide intuitions also for the widespread resistance to deaccessioning of public museum directors, for their efforts to enforce common regulation, and also for the proliferation of private art museums. |
| Keywords: | deaccessioning; museums; asymmetric information; sequential game |
| JEL: | C73 Z11 D82 Z10 D83 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cue:wpaper:awp-01-2014&r=cul |
| By: | Tristan Klocke (Faculdade de Economia e Gestão, Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Porto); Joana César Machado (Faculdade de Economia e Gestão and CEGE, Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Porto) |
| Abstract: | This study examines cultural factors influencing brand building strategies in the Chinese market. Our purpose is to investigate what Chinese consumers value in a brand, examining consumer behavior as well as manufacturers and their business strategies to respond to customers. Findings show a positive correlation between branding strategies considering cultural factors and business success in China, implicating that culture, lifestyle, and economic development influence customers’ attitude towards a brand. In particular, brand image, a connection with a social group, and a strong need to avoid uncertainty, reflect dominant culture values in the purchase decision of consumer goods, implicating that they are valued as a reflection of Chinese consumers’ own cultural values. The paper concludes with a discussion about implications and suggestions for future research. |
| Keywords: | China, consumer goods, culture, consumption, branding |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cap:mpaper:012014&r=cul |
| By: | Lasse Steiner; Bruno S. Frey; Magnus Resch |
| Abstract: | A unique recent data set covering around 3,000 private art collections and collectors is used to identify their location and composition. The largest number of private collections is located in Europe, followed by North America and Asia. The largest number of private art collections is located in the United States. The United Kingdom, Germany and Spain have more collections per capita of population. Private collectors above all assemble works by artists from North America, followed by Asian, and only then European artists. The three artists most assembled by private collectors are Warhol, Picasso and Hirst. A considerable part of the differences in the number of private collections per head between countries can be attributed to per capita income. The collection of art is mainly undertaken by persons who can afford to build up wealth also in the form of collections of art. |
| Keywords: | Art; collections; home bias; investment; international finance |
| JEL: | Z11 F14 G15 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2014-03&r=cul |
| By: | Evers, Hans-Dieter |
| Abstract: | Evers, Hans-Dieter. 2014. "Understanding the South China Sea: An Explorative Cultural Analysis." International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies 10(1):80-95. The South China Sea has attracted considerable attention among politicians, journalists and scholars since it has become a contested maritime space. Most works concentrate on conflicts and negotiations to resolve the ensuing issues. In this paper, a cultural theory will be applied to stress the importance of conceptions of space found in different cultures. The South China Sea is defined as "Mediterranean." By comparing it to other maritime spaces, like the Baltic and the Mediterranean Sea, lessons will be drawn from the "longue durée" of history, as analysed by French historian Fernand Braudel and from concepts of the cultural theory of Oswald Spengler. The paper will look at the South China Sea from two perspectives. The political perspective will discuss various events that have happened due to political tensions because of territorial demarcations, fishing rights and access to natural resources. Comparing three "Mediterranean seas," I shall argue that Mediterranean seas share certain properties that give rise to tensions and even armed conflict, but also solutions to its problems. The second perspective uses macro-sociology and cultural anthropology to classify and understand actions of the general population as well as political leaders when they ascertain property rights to Mediterranean seas. |
| Keywords: | South China Sea, maritime economy, resources, cultural analysis,Mediterranean seas, ASEAN, China; South China Sea, cultural analysis, cultural theory, Mediterranean seas, ASEAN |
| JEL: | F5 F51 Q4 Q48 Z1 Z13 |
| Date: | 2014–01–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:55389&r=cul |
| By: | Turner, Robert (Department of Economics, Colgate University) |
| Abstract: | This is the draft of a chapter from a forthcoming book related to the conference Sensing Change: Mapping the Climatic Imaginary through Art, Science and History, held at the Chemical Heritage Foundation November 7-9, 2013. The artwork shown in the exhibit Sensing Change is part of a thriving environmental art movement. There is a long history of art influencing environmental attitudes and to some extent behavior. Historically such art has used what photography critic Vicki Goldberg calls the “pastoral eulogy†approach but there is also a more critical approach that emphasizes the environmental damage and risk associated with human behavior. Ecological artist Ruth Wallen says, “Ecological art work can help engender an intuitive appreciation of the environment, address core values, advocate political action, and broaden intellectual understanding.†But there is little evidence about whether people change their behavior in response to this sort of art. This chapter uses a contingent choice survey (a kind of choice experiment) to investigate whether exposure to such artwork influences environmental behavior, in particular the purchase of carbon offsets. (Purchasing offsets provides funding for activities that reduce net greenhouse gas emissions.) Contingent choice surveys are often used to analyze respondents’ environmental behavior and/or the underlying preferences for environmental goods and resources driving that behavior. In these surveys, respondents choose among a selection of hypothetical or real scenarios comprised of varying levels of different variables. Based on the choices they make, the relative importance of the different variables can be estimated. In the survey upon which this chapter is based, respondents chose from alternative carbon offset purchase options, including the option to buy no offsets. The central questions are as follows: what would make respondents more or less likely to choose to buy no offsets, and did respondents who saw artwork as part of the survey differ systematically from those who didn’t? Subsets of respondents in a choice experiment investigating willingness to buy carbon offsets were shown artistic images related to climate change. One subset was shown photographs from The Canary Project (Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris); another subset was shown images from the Wind Map: Poetry in Motion project (Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg); a control group was not shown any artistic images. The survey responses were analyzed to explore whether the artistic images affected respondents' willingness to buy carbon offsets. Another issue investigated was whether the images affect the ways in which the willingness to buy carbon offsets is influenced by other factors. These other factors include the types of mitigation efforts being funded by offsets and also personal characteristics of the respondents such as age, income, and adherence to social norms. The results of the split-sample contingent choice survey indicate that respondents who were shown photographs by the Canary Project that illustrate the impacts of climate change were more likely to purchase carbon offsets than were respondents in a control group. This is even though the respondents viewed the images only briefly: typically for less than a minute. Not all artistic images had this effect, though: respondents who saw animated images from the Wind Map Project that illustrate wind speeds and patterns for extreme weather events were actually less willing to buy offsets than the control group. Results indicate that preferences about buying carbon offsets are very heterogeneous, but in all cases the pattern remains that respondents in the treatment group that saw the Canary Project photos are more likely to buy offsets and respondents in the treatment group that saw the Wind Map Project images are less likely to buy offsets. The heterogeneity was driven largely by variables related to social norms and expectations. But the differences across treatment groups were not driven by differences in individual characteristics. The chapter continues with some thoughts about why the responses to the Canary Project and Wind Map Project art differed. The chapter concludes with some ideas for future survey-based research exploring the impact of art on environmental attitudes and behavior. |
| Keywords: | artistic images, carbon offsets, contingent choice, choice experiments |
| JEL: | Z11 Q54 |
| Date: | 2014–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgt:wpaper:2014-03&r=cul |