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on Cultural Economics |
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Issue of 2022‒12‒05
nine papers chosen by Roberto Zanola Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Lanqing Du; Michelle Kim; Jinwook Lee |
| Abstract: | Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are crypto assets with a unique digital identifier for ownership, powered by blockchain technology. Technically speaking, anything digital could be minted and sold as an NFT, which provides proof of ownership and authenticity of a digital file. For this reason, it helps us distinguish between the originals and their copies, making it possible to trade them. This paper focuses on art NFTs that change how artists can sell their products. It also changes how the art trade market works since NFT technology cuts out the middleman. Recently, the utility of NFTs has become an essential issue in the NFT ecosystem, which refers to the owners' usefulness, profitability, and benefits. Using recent major art NFT marketplace datasets, we summarize and interpret the current market trends and patterns in a way that brings insight into the future art market. Numerical examples are presented. |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2210.14942&r=cul |
| By: | Huang, Po-Lung (Kobe University) |
| Abstract: | Street dance, one of the four most important elements of hip hop culture, was developed mainly by African American youths in the 1970s and imported to Japan in the 1980s. Since then, street dance has been diversified by local media such as manga/anime in Japan. This article therefore analyses how Japanese storytelling, exemplified by Shin’ichirō Watanabe’s anime Samurai Champloo (2004–05), Santa Inoue’s manga Tokyo Tribe-2 (1997–2005) and Tatsuo Satō’s anime adaptation Tokyo Tribes 2 (2006–07), has transcribed the hip hop elements into the Tokugawa-Edo period’s art scenes and fictitious ‘Tōkyō’, and provides a basis for understanding hip hop culture in Japan by drawing on Charles Taylor’s ‘language of perspicuous contrast’ (1985). Although manga and anime quickly reflected popular cultural trends in Japan, hip hop elements did not manifest as main material until Tokyo Tribe-2 was released. Thus, there was apparently a prolonged interval between the arrival of hip hop culture in Japan and its representation by manga/anime after Japanese youths’ first fancied street dance. Therefore, street dance culture could have been transformed within the Japanese cultural context. This article also analyses the representation/transcription of street dance and hip hop in manga/amine by contextualizing the Japanesesocialpolitical background to explain this prolonged interval. |
| Date: | 2021–03–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:3f54q&r=cul |
| By: | Liu, Jin |
| Abstract: | The Chengdu-based quartet Higher Brothers recently became the first China-born hip hop group to gain global fame. As rap music – originally a local, ethnic African American culture in the United States – has been continually relocalized all over the world and thus globalized, the Higher Brothers have undergone another process of glocalization. This presents a new case study to further examine the dynamics between the global and the local. Because rap is an intensely verbal art, this article explores how the Higher Brothers construct and negotiate their complicated and multiple (local, national and global) identities from the perspective of language. It analyses the language used in their songs – Sichuan Chengdu Mandarin, Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) and English – before and after they signed with 88rising, the media company that brought the group to the West. Due to the rappers’ distinctive ways of vocal production, many of their trap-style songs prove hard to understand not only for global audiences but also for most Chinese national audiences and even for the quartet’s local audiences. Drawing on recent studies of mumble rap, this article explores the politics and sonic aesthetics of unintelligibility of the Chinese trap music. |
| Date: | 2021–03–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:cv78u&r=cul |
| By: | Yudhistira, Muhammad Rizqi |
| Abstract: | Disruptif adalah inovasi yang membantu menciptakan hal baru dan tentunya pangsa pasar baru. Bahkan bisa dikatakan mengganggu dan merusak pasar yang sudah ada sebelumnya. Perusahaan yang akan saya bahas terkait dengan inovasinya di bidang music dan membuat pasar dari music konvensional terganggu adalah perusahaan Spotify. Spotify sendiri adalah sebuah platform layanan penyiaran music yang berbasis di Stockholm, Swedia yang diluncurkan pada 2008 oleh Daniel Ek. Sebenarnya Spotify ini sendiri dikembangkan pada tahun 2006 oleh mantan CTO dari Stardoll yaitu Daniel Ek. Spotify sendiri berasal dari kata Spot dan Identify. Sejak peluncurannya, Spotify berhasil menggeser berbagai music konvensional dan merusak pangsa pasar dari bisnis music konvensional itu sendiri. Sebenarnya awal dari music digital bukan pertama kali dicetuskan oleh Spotify namun oleh Napster. Napster sempat mencuri perhatian pada tahun 2000 namun mendapat banyak kecaman serta boikot dari para produsen music konvensional. |
| Date: | 2022–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:edujr&r=cul |
| By: | Vétu, Guillaume |
| Abstract: | In terms of zombie film output, Japan is perhaps the second largest in the world after the United States and above the United Kingdom. Yet only a relatively small number of these films have received academic attention. Having sourced and verified an exhaustive catalogue of over 160 feature-length Japanese zombie films produced between 1959 and 2018, and through recent field work in Japan, including personal interviews with local film, media and folklore scholars and professionals, this article constructs a clearer overview of this uncharted corpus. It presents some of the most predominant cultural specificities of Japanese zombie films and their compelling narrative and stylistic heterogeneity. Previous assertions confined these films to a ‘cult’ sub-genre, restricting the Japanese monsters they feature to mere western imports; however, this article demonstrates that Japanese cinematic zombies defy simple categorization and repeatedly challenge some of the key posits at the centre of zombie studies, especially regarding their defining characteristics. The Japanese folklore and literary tradition in particular provides a new lens through which these popular fictional ‘Others’ can be (re)examined, uncovering new significance and offering new insights into both Japanese and western cultures. |
| Date: | 2021–03–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:97v3e&r=cul |
| By: | Ewelina Plachimowicz (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Piotr Wójcik (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This article focuses on an attempt to value Non-Fungible Tokens from the CryptoPunks collection. Based on the data from January 2021 to July 2021, a hedonic pricing model was built, based on the transaction history and characteristics of a given NFT, as well as external markets variables - cryptocurrency prices (Bitcoin and Ethereum), natural gas prices and the popularity of the collection in social media (Twitter). According to the literature, we decided to build three regression models: Ordinary Least Squares model, XGBoost algorithm and bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory Model. Based on the results, we were able to prove that such complex issues as NFT valuation require more advanced methods than the classical regression model. In addition, we proved that one of the most important categories of variables in the case of NFT valuation is the history of token sales and its characteristics, indicating a particular rarity. Moreover, we have shown that the cryptocurrency and natural gas market is not an important factor in the NFT valuation. Finally, we proved that the increase in the popularity of tokens in social media translates into an increase in NFT prices, and this is an important element when trying to valuate tokens. |
| Keywords: | NFT, Non-Fungible Token, pricing, valuation, luxury goods, cryptocurrencies |
| JEL: | Z11 G14 G12 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2022-27&r=cul |
| By: | Shekhtman, Louis; Barabasi, Albert Laszlo |
| Abstract: | A considerable portion of the funds in art come from foundations, representing a key revenue stream for many art organizations. Here we use the IRS e-file dataset to identify $36B in grants from 46,643 foundations to 48,766 art recipients between 2010-2019. We find that philanthropic giving is broadly distributed, indicating that some institutions give or receive considerably more than others. Giving is highly localized, with 60% of grants and funds going in the same state as the donor. Furthermore, donors often support multiple local art organizations that offer distinct experiences, rather than advancing a particular subarea within art. Donor retention is strong with nearly 70% of relationships continuing the next year. Finally, we explored the role of institutional prestige in foundation giving, finding that while funding generally correlates with prestige, exceptions exist. Our results present the largest and most comprehensive data-driven exploration of giving by foundations to art to date. |
| Date: | 2022–06–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5ebjw&r=cul |
| By: | Kanazawa, Kyogo; Kawaguchi, Kohei |
| Abstract: | If free lending in public libraries is displacing sales in bookstores, some compensation may be needed to maintain incentives for authors to create new works. To determine whether this is indeed the case, we created a novel dataset that integrated bookstore sales data with public library copy data in Japan and quantified the displacement effects of public libraries. Controls for title-municipality, months-after-publication, and municipality-month-specific unobserved heterogeneity were introduced. The study found that a library copy displaced the sales of the title in the municipality by approximately 0.24 copies per month for the top 1/6 popular books and 0.52 copies for bestsellers. Various robustness checks were consistent with the baseline results; thus, the study confirmed the displacement effects of popular books. |
| Date: | 2022–08–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:4r6bk&r=cul |
| By: | Brad Humphreys (Department of Economics, College of Business and Economics, West Virginia University); J. James Reade (Department of Economics, University of Reading); Dominik Schreyer (Wissenschaftliche Hochschule für Unternehmensführung (WHU)); Carl Singleton (Department of Economics, University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | The number of people consuming sporting events has long interested economists. Although imperfect, it is a measure of the demand for a ‘peculiar’ type of good or service — the sporting event. It also provides some measure of the social pressure on individuals performing. That pressure can be supportive, but it can also contribute to negative outcomes like choking on the part of performers. The extent to which a crowd is supportive or otherwise, however, is not always clear. In this paper we introduce a novel dataset detailing reported numbers of away fans at matches in England over recent years. We spend time characterising the dataset, and considering potential uses for it. We find evidence suggestive of different preferences for home and away fans; public holidays are a much stronger driver for away fan attendance, as is a team’s league position. For away fans, whether or not the team remains in contention for end-of-season prizes matters much more than for home fans, and away fans are attracted by the novelty of a fixture more than home fans. We find some evidence that the expected number of away fans may have a small impact on match outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Sport, home advantage, attendance, demand |
| JEL: | Z2 R42 D91 |
| Date: | 2022–11–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2022-11&r=cul |