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on Cultural Economics |
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Issue of 2015‒10‒17
five papers chosen by Roberto Zanola Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” |
| By: | Aleksandra Wiśniewska (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Mikołaj Czajkowski (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw) |
| Abstract: | While public support for culture, and performing arts in particular has become a less self-evident privilege all over Europe than in the past, the economic evidence for benefits a society gains from those goods has become essential for both of the following: scientific research in the area of cultural economics and cultural policy. Although the non-market valuation has been employed as a tool for measuring social benefits generated by cultural resources, the budget constraint has not been considered in most studies regarding the performing arts. Due to that constraint, the crucial question that decision-makers have to answer is then not “whether to finance” or “how big the support should be”, but rather “how to allocate scarce resources”. The aim of our study is to investigate socially preferred ways of allocating public resources in the context of the types of performances offered by municipal theaters in Warsaw. The problem investigated is a current issue for local policy-making, but in a broader sense, it illustrates how state-of-the-art stated preference methods could be employed to support cultural policy. We find that inhabitants of Warsaw assign positive value to the broader accessibility of municipal theaters, and their willingness to pay for making the theaters a truly public good (by introducing a program of highly discounted tickets) exceeds the costs of such a policy. However, we also find that the cost-benefit relationship varies across theaters with different types of plays in their repertories. Our results imply a different level of socially efficient support for experimental, drama, children’s and entertainment theaters. |
| Keywords: | cultural economics, theater, non-market valuation, discrete choice experiment, public expenditures |
| JEL: | Z1 Z11 Z18 D61 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2015-36&r=all |
| By: | van Hoorn, Andre |
| Abstract: | We assess the organizational culture in the finance industry in relation to the global financial crisis (GFC) and consider the potential of cultural change to improve the financial sector. To avoid (response) biases, we build on the person-organization (P-O) fit literature and develop a novel, indirect method for assessing organizational culture that revolves around relationships between employees’ personal traits and their career success in the industry or organization under study. We analyze personal values concerning the pursuit of private gain (self-enhancement values) versus personal values concerning caring for others (self-transcendence values) and consider whether employees that value self-enhancement more and self-transcendence less enjoy more career success relative to their peers when working in finance than when working in other industries. Results do not reveal any sort of cross-industry differences that would implicate the finance industry’s culture in the financial crisis. Instead, we find the opposite, namely that strong self-enhancement values and weak self-transcendence values go together with less career success in the finance industry compared to other industries. Hence, if anything, the culture in the finance industry does not seem to resonate well with professionals that seek to pursue personal gain at the expense of clients’ welfare. Implication is that cultural change has little potential to improve the financial system. Meanwhile, the method for assessing organizational culture indirectly by analyzing relationships between employees’ traits and their career outcomes has wider applicability, particularly when relying on scores or measures obtained directly from the people concerned is likely to render biased evidence. |
| Keywords: | Organizational culture; global financial crisis; personal values; employee outcomes; P-O fit |
| JEL: | M51 Z10 |
| Date: | 2015–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:67222&r=all |
| By: | Prummer, Anja (Cambridge-INET Institute); Siedlarek, Jan-Peter (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | We explain persistent differences in cultural traits of immigrant groups with the presence of community leaders. Leaders influence the cultural traits of their community, which have an impact on the group’s earnings. They determine whether a community will be more assimilated and wealthier or less assimilated and poorer. With a leader, cultural integration remains incomplete. The leader chooses more distinctive cultural traits in high-productivity environments and if the community is more connected. Lump-sum transfers to immigrants can hinder cultural integration. These findings are in line with integration patterns of various ethnic and religious groups. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Integration; Cultural Transmission; Leadership; Immigrants; Labor Market Outcomes; Social Influence; Networks |
| JEL: | D02 J15 Z10 |
| Date: | 2015–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1517&r=all |
| By: | Legge, Stegan; Schmid, Lukas |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether biased media attention affects perceptions about future events. We use data on World Cup tournaments in alpine skiing for the period of 1992-2014 and exploit close races as a source of randomness for ranking positions. Our results document that ranking positions generate sharp discontinuities in media attention even in close races. However, both regression discontinuity and instrumental variables estimates reveal that biased media attention neither affects prices nor quantities in the betting market. We conduct a series of robustness tests to explore the sensitivity of our results. |
| Keywords: | Betting, Rankings, Media Attention |
| JEL: | D03 L83 M50 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2015:21&r=all |
| By: | Alejandro Castañeda (Centro de Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México); Cesar Martinelli (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science and Department of Economics, George Mason University) |
| Abstract: | We offer a tractable model of broadcast media as a three-sided platform, serving entertainment and news to viewers, commercial opportunities to advertisers, and electoral influence to politicians. We characterize the profit maximization decision of a media firm, and study the effect on social welfare of changes in the value of electoral influence, via induced changes in commercial advertising, the entertainment value of media, and political distortions. |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gms:wpaper:1055&r=all |