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on Cultural Economics |
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Issue of 2021‒04‒19
three papers chosen by Roberto Zanola Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Benetos, Emmanouil (Queen Mary, University of London); Ragano, Alessandro (The Alan Turing Institute); Sgroi, Daniel (University of Warwick); Tuckwell, Anthony (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | National life satisfaction is an important way to measure societal well-being and since 2011 has been used to judge the effectiveness of government policy across the world. However, there is a paucity of historical data making limiting long-run comparisons with other data. We construct a new measure based on the emotional content of music. We first trained a machine learning model using 191 different audio features embedded within music and use this model to construct a long-run Music Valence Index derived from chart-topping songs. This index correlates strongly and significantly with survey-based life satisfaction and outperforms an equivalent text-based measure. Our results have implications for the role of music in society, and validate a new use of music as a long-run measure of public sentiment. |
| Keywords: | historical subjective wellbeing, life satisfaction, music, sound data, language, big data |
| JEL: | C8 N3 N4 O1 D6 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14258&r=all |
| By: | Michel Serafinelli; Guido Tabellini |
| Abstract: | Creativity is often highly concentrated in time and space, and across different domains. What explains the formation and decay of clusters of creativity? We match data on notable individuals born in Europe between the XIth and the XIXth century with historical city data. The production and attraction of creative talent is associated with city institutions that protected economic and political freedoms and promoted local autonomy. Instead, indicators of local economic conditions such as city size and real wages, do not predict creative clusters. We also show that famous creatives are spatially concentrated and clustered across disciplines, that their spatial mobility has remained stable over the centuries, and that creative clusters are persistent but less than population. |
| Keywords: | innovation, agglomeration, political institutions, immigration, gravity, human capital |
| JEL: | R10 O10 J61 J24 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8973&r=all |
| By: | Ivan Guitart (emlyon business school); Stefan Stremersch |
| Abstract: | This article documents how informational and emotional appeals in more than 2,000 television ads for 144 car models, aired over four years, influence online search and sales. Increasing the emotional content of ads leads to increases in online search, but increasing the informational content does not. Both informational and emotional content positively influence sales. However, increases in informational content lead to more incremental sales for low-price and low-quality cars than for high-price and high-quality cars. In turn, increases in emotional content generate more incremental sales for high-price cars than for low-price cars. Analyses of the results suggest that managers of high-price and high-quality cars should prioritize emotional rather than informational content in ads. However, managers of low-price and low-quality cars should emphasize emotional content if their objective is to increase online search and informational content if their objective is to increase sales. |
| Keywords: | Advertising content,Advertising effectiveness,automotive industry,online search,purchase funnel,Television advertising |
| Date: | 2021–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03193729&r=all |