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on Cultural Economics |
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Issue of 2018‒01‒08
five papers chosen by Roberto Zanola Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Lovo, Stefano; Spaenjers, Christophe |
| Abstract: | We present an infinite-horizon model of endogenous trading in the art auction market. Agents make purchase and sale decisions based on the relative magnitude of their private use value in each period. Our model generates endogenous cross-sectional and time-series patterns in investment outcomes. Average returns and buy-in probabilities are negatively correlated with the time between purchase and resale (attempt). Idiosyncratic risk does not converge to zero as the holding period shrinks. Prices and auction volume increase during expansions. Our model finds empirical support in auction data and has implications for selection biases in observed prices and transaction-based price indexes. |
| Keywords: | art; auctions; endogenous trading; price indexes; private values; returns |
| JEL: | D44 D84 G11 G12 Z11 |
| Date: | 2017–09–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:heccah:1150&r=cul |
| By: | Megbowon Funmilola Kemi (University of Fort Hare, South Africa); Uwah Chijioke (University of Fort Hare, South Africa) |
| Abstract: | The role of religion and culture in socio-economic development cannot be underestimated. Coupled with socio-economic advancement, the postcolonial and contemporary African society is characterised by unprecedented rise in the level of religious movements with diverse contradicting beliefs championed by so called spiritual and religious leaders. The overwhelming socio-economic downturn in the society has meant that people have turned to religion for solutions to their problem but the church has not really lived up to expectation which writer like Soyinka portrayed in his text. Considering the above mentioned, this study textually analysed Wole Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero from a postcolonial theoretical perspective with the aims of exploring religious dynamics vis-Ã -vis cultural /moral degradation as portrayed in the text. It further resonate the place of culture in the contemporary religious environment. Moral degradation is captured from the characters of brother Jero, the old prophet, Jeroboam and the drummer boy where lack of respect for elders, covetous exploitation by spiritual leaders, materialism, falsehood and deceit are exemplified in religious setting as depicted in the text. All these delinquencies are contrary to indigenous cultural and moral values of the traditional Nigeria society. With the above highlighted current delinquency trend, the study concludes that the place of culture in the future of religion cannot be underplayed. This is so because indigenous cultural values place high emphasis on uprightness, truth, contentment, respect, which are needed in making contemporary religion worthy to practice, religious leaders more respected and peoples trust on their leaders justifiable. |
| Keywords: | Religion, Postcolonial, Materialism, Merchandise, Politics |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:opaper:15&r=cul |
| By: | Chetia Barnali (Indian Institute of Information Technolgy) |
| Abstract: | In India, language is the key instrument by which we assimilate the culture. And it is a major means of identifying a set of people, nation or country. Hinglish, a portmanteau of Hindi and English, is a hybrid of English and South Asian languages. It is a code-switching and mixing variety of these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences. In a multilingual country like India code-mixing and switching has become a norm rather than a deviation. It is also noticed that linguists use the term code-mixing and switching interchangeably, especially in case of formal studies on syntax and morphology. Language contact is considered to be an important phenomenon, especially in a multilingual society like India. While the name is based on the Hindi language, it does not refer exclusively to Hindi, but is used in India, with English words blending with Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi. With the advent of modern technology, and the availability of popular media in finger tips, from a toddler to a nonagenerian, the very concept of language, culture and communication has undergone a huge change. Hinglish and code-mixing and switching has crept its way into advertisements, TV shows, and Bollywood movies as well as the corridors of corporate and political power in India. This paper is an empirical study of code mixed and switched utterances in the form of songs, ad taglines and jingles in Indian media which came into existence as a by product of modern technology and changed the definition of communication in Indian media. And this paper further discusses the scope of Hinglish as the lingua franca for not only the upper-class urban Indians, but also semi-urban and rural centers of the Hindi-speaking states of India where modern technology in the form of television, radio, mobile phones, internet etc. has become an indispensable part of their life. |
| Keywords: | Code-mixing/switching, Technology, Hinglish, Communication, Language Contact, Media |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:opaper:11&r=cul |
| By: | Olessia Y. Koltsova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Sergei V. Pashakhin (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Although conflict representation in media has been widely studied, few attempts have been made to perform large-scale comparisons of agendas in the media of conflicting parties, especially for armed country-level confrontations. In this paper, we introduce quantitative evidence of agenda divergence between the media of conflicting parties in the course of the Ukrainian crisis 2013-2014. Using 45,000 messages from the online newsfeeds of a Russian and a Ukrainian TV channels, we perform topic modelling coupled with qualitative analysis to reveal crisis-related topics, assess their salience and map evolution of attention of both channels to each of those topics. We find that the two channels produce fundamentally different agenda sequences: in particular, while the Russian channel pays little attention to confrontation between the Ukrainian government and the opposition before the regime change, the Ukrainian channel is less inclined to cover armed violence in East Ukraine and refugees after the regime change. |
| Keywords: | news, agenda building, conflict coverage, topic modelling, Ukrainian crisis. |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:79/soc/2017&r=cul |
| By: | Bredtmann, Julia; Nowotny, Klaus; Otten, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the interaction between migrant networks and linguistic distance in the location choice of migrants to the EU at the regional level. We test the hypothesis that networks and the ability to communicate in the host country language, proxied by linguistic distance, are substitutes in the location decision. Based on individual level data from a special evaluation of the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) and a random utility maximization framework, we find that networks have a positive effect on the location decisions while the effect of linguistic distance is negative. We also find a strong positive interaction effect between the two factors: networks are more important the larger the linguistic distance between the home country and the host region, and the negative effect of linguistic distance is smaller the larger the network size. In several extensions and robustness checks, we show that this substitutable relationship is extremely robust. |
| Keywords: | Location choice,ethnic networks,linguistic distance,EU migration,multilateral resistance |
| JEL: | F22 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:725&r=cul |