|
on Cultural Economics |
|
Issue of 2015‒08‒07
two papers chosen by Roberto Zanola Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” |
| By: | David Galenson (University of Chicago); Simone Lenzu (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | Economists have neglected a key issue for understanding and increasing technological change, in failing to study how talented individuals produce innovations. This paper takes a quantitative approach to this problem. Regression analysis of auction data from 1965-2015 reveals that the age-price profiles of Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol – the two greatest painters born in the 20th century – closely resemble the age profiles of the two artists derived both from textbooks of art history and from retrospective exhibitions. The agreement of these sources confirms that the auction market assigns the highest prices to the most important art, and examination of the artists’ careers reveals that this art is the most important because it is the most innovative. These results lend strong support to our understanding of creativity at the individual level, with a sharp contrast between the extended experimental innovation of Pollock and the sudden conceptual innovation of Warhol. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2015-10&r=cul |
| By: | Durante, Ruben; Pinotti, Paolo; Tesei, Andrea |
| Abstract: | We investigate the political impact of entertainment television in Italy over the past thirty years by exploiting the staggered introduction of Silvio Berlusconi's commercial TV network, Mediaset, in the early 1980s. We find that individuals in municipalities that had access to Mediaset prior to 1985 - when the network only featured light entertainment programs - were significantly more likely to vote for Berlusconi's party in 1994, when he first ran for office. This effect persists for almost two decades and five elections, and is especially pronounced for heavy TV viewers, namely the very young and the old. We relate the extreme persistence of the effect to the relative incidence of these age groups in the voting population, and explore different mechanisms through which early exposure to entertainment content may have influenced their political attitudes. |
| Keywords: | entertainment; Italy; political participation; television; voting |
| JEL: | D72 L82 Z13 |
| Date: | 2015–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10738&r=cul |