nep-cul New Economics Papers
on Cultural Economics
Issue of 2017‒03‒19
four papers chosen by
Roberto Zanola
Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale

  1. Has cultural heritage monetary value an impact on visits? An assessment using Italian official data By Calogero Guccio; Domenico Lisi; Anna Mignosa; Ilde Rizzo
  2. Economic, Political and Cultural Proximity and Growth Propagation: A Network Model with Endogenous Proximity Matrix By Mohamed Mekki Ben Jemaa
  3. Can Television Reduce Xenophobia? - The Case of East Germany By Lars Hornuf; Marc Oliver Rieger
  4. Arrivals of Tourists in Cyprus: Mind the Web Search Intensity By Theologos Dergiades; Eleni Mavragani; Bing Pan

  1. By: Calogero Guccio (Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania); Domenico Lisi (Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania); Anna Mignosa (Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania); Ilde Rizzo (Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania)
    Abstract: In this paper we try to investigate which factors affect the visits to Cultural Heritage (CH), using Italy as a case study. We adopt a broad definition of CH including archaeological and historical sites, historical buildings and, also, museums, focusing our attention on State CH. In our empirical analysis we use a rather innovative indicator of CH value, i.e. the monetary value of State CH, officially provided by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Using these data, this paper aims at evaluating if such monetary value has a significant role in stimulating visits to cultural sites for the years 1996-2010. We also control for other factors potentially affecting the number of visits to cultural sites, such as alternative tourist attractors and the regional performance in the tourism sector. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to investigate the effect of CH monetary value on cultural participation.
    Keywords: cultural heritage, monetary value, cultural visitors, tourist arrivals
    JEL: Z11 Z18 Z32
    Date: 2017–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cue:wpaper:awp-02-2017&r=cul
  2. By: Mohamed Mekki Ben Jemaa (University of Dammam)
    Abstract: The growth model at the Sala-i-Martin (1991 and 1992) fashion is revisited in order to take into account the interdependence of growth across countries based on the idea that outcomes are subject to mutual influence through a set of geographical, cultural, economic and financial determinants that are likely to condition growth propagation between economies through the world. A spatial lag like model is estimated for a sample of 146 countries from 1995 to 2009 in which the adjacency matrix is endogenous and set conditional of a set of bilateral variables describing the multidimensional aspect of the proximity between countries. MCMC estimation results show several prominent key feature of the growth propagation process through the countries’ sample; as 17 MENA countries are in the sample, it was possible to characterize a network of spillover for these countries. One of the most important results is that trade and cultural proximity play a predominant role in growth spillover between countries. Clusters of high spillover effect are not only identified, but also their determinants are clearly assessed along with the importance of their impact. Distinction can be made between reciprocal spillover outcome propagation which identify a high performance cluster and asymmetric propagation witnessing the presence of a hotspot effect.
    Date: 2016–01–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erg:wpaper:1047&r=cul
  3. By: Lars Hornuf (Institute for Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the EU, Trier University); Marc Oliver Rieger (Trier University)
    Abstract: Can television have a mitigating e?ect on xenophobia? To examine this question, we exploit the fact that individuals in some areas of East Germany – due to their geographic location – could not receive West German television until 1989. We conjecture that individuals who received West German television were exposed more frequently to foreigners and thus have developed less xenophobia than people who were not exposed to those programs. Our results show that regions that could receive West German television were less likely to vote for right-wing parties during the national elections from 1998 to 2013. Only recently, the same regions were also more likely to vote for left-wing parties. Moreover, while counties that hosted more foreigners in 1989 were also more likely to vote for right-wing parties in most elections, we find counties that recently hosted more foreign visitors showed less xenophobia, which is in line with intergroup contact theory.
    Keywords: Mass media; Television; Xenophobia; Attitudes towards foreigners; East Germany; Natural experiment
    JEL: D72 L82 P3
    Date: 2017–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iaa:dpaper:201702&r=cul
  4. By: Theologos Dergiades; Eleni Mavragani; Bing Pan
    Abstract: This paper validates the raison d’être of the effortlessly recovered web Search Intensity Indices (SII) for predicting the arrivals of tourists in Cyprus. By using monthly data (2004-2015) and two causality testing procedures we find, for properly selected key-phrases, that web search intensity (adjusted for different languages and different search engines) turns out to convey a useful predictive content for the arrivals of tourists in Cyprus. Additionally, we show that whenever the prevailing shares of visitors come from countries in different languages, then the identification of the aggregate SII becomes complex. Hence, we argue that blindly using key-phrases to identify an aggregate SII is like an immersion into the unknown, since two sources of bias (the language bias and the search engine bias) are fully neglected. Given the importance of the tourism sector in the total economy activity of Cyprus, our findings might prove to be quite useful to governmental agencies, policy makers and other stakeholders of the sector when their purpose is to allocate effectively the existing limited resources, and to plan short- and long-run promotion and investment strategies.
    Date: 2017–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hel:greese:107&r=cul

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