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on Cultural Economics |
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Issue of 2025–08–18
five papers chosen by Roberto Zanola, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Van Even, Priscilla (KU Leuven); Wang, Huize (Zhejiang University); Wang, Kexin; Fang, Yu; Bibert, Niels (KU Leuven) |
| Abstract: | Museums are more than repositories of cultural treasures; they actively collect, preserve, and exhibit cultural heritage for local and global audiences, reflecting shared values and serving as important institutes for cross-cultural exchange. Within this chapter, we will explore “中国历代 绘画大系”, A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings, an impressive printed series of Chinese artworks dedicated to preserving and presenting ancient Chinese cultural heritage in all of its glory. This unprecedented collection, along with its curation and communication, emerged through intensive global exchanges, cross-cultural dialogues, interdisciplinary collaborations, and technological innovation, positioning it as an exemplary case for museums of the future. The Collection has been documented in an encyclopedic multi-volume book series, which has been donated to universities worldwide, and it has also been exhibited in museums both within and beyond China, communicated through digital media platforms, and has even inspired the creation of a dedicated Collection Hall complex building, “中国历代绘画大系典藏馆” , at the Yuhang District in Hangzhou. Within this chapter, we approach this collection through two complementary disciplinary lenses. First, from an art historical perspective, we trace the story of the collection’s formation, the challenges of gathering and preserving Chinese paintings dispersed across global institutions, and the essential role of digital mediation in this process. Second, from the fields of media studies and communication sciences, we examine the establishment of the Collection Hall by Yuhang Municipal Government and Zhejiang University, and its innovative use of technology and spatial design to curate and communicate art across cultural and geographic borders in and beyond the museum. Together, these perspectives reveal how museums can evolve into dynamic, digitally mediated spaces for cultural dialogue and heritage preservation in a globalized world. Keywords – Chinese paintings, cultural heritage, preservation, art communication, cross-cultural collaboration, digital mediation, interdisciplinarity |
| Date: | 2025–07–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:kh3c8_v1 |
| By: | Puppe, Clemens; Tasnádi, Attila |
| Abstract: | In many professional activities humans are getting better generation by generation. This is supposed to be the case, for instance, in sports and in science. Is it true in the arts? In this paper, we consider violinists from the time period in which audio and video recordings became possible. Based on the number of YouTube views, and by employing different aggregation methods, we find that listening to violinists from the mid of the previous century does not seem to be significantly less attractive to audiences than listening to contemporary violinists. Methodologically, our analysis contributes to the growing literature on the aggregation of incomplete lists. In particular, we introduce a generalization of the Nash collective utility function for incomplete lists. |
| Keywords: | Group decisions and negotiations, multi-criteria decision making, aggregation of incomplete lists, Nash collective utility function, top violinists |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kitwps:323216 |
| By: | Raquel Fernández |
| Abstract: | Culture’s influence on economic outcomes is no longer controversial among economists even if it remains largely ignored in many areas of economics. This paper tackles a different question: why does culture change? The underlying premise adopted here is that culture changes because incentives change, transforming actions and beliefs. An idiosyncratic review of the literature follows that illustrates how the environment (e.g., the prevalence of pathogens or the suitability of land for pastoralism) and historical experiences (e.g., colonization, war, or migration) can affect relationships of power in society and shape people’s beliefs. It then examines the role of new information and ideas (i.e., learning) and finally the role of policies in shaping incentives and changing culture. A second part of the paper reviews work that models the mechanisms of cultural change more explicitly, using quantitative models to examine the interplay between economic incentives and evolving beliefs or preferences and to study the importance of intermediating mechanisms. Given that one of the most profound cultural and economic transformations of the past 150 years concerns gender roles, this theme recurs throughout. |
| JEL: | P0 Z1 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34077 |
| By: | Justin Katz; Hunt Allcott |
| Abstract: | We present a new model of competition between digital media platforms with targeted advertising. The model adds new insights around how user heterogeneity and overlap, along with user and advertiser substitution patterns, determine equilibrium ad load. We apply the model to evaluate the proposed separation of Facebook and Instagram. We estimate structural parameters using evidence on diminishing returns to advertising from a new randomized experiment and information on user overlap, diversion ratios, and price elasticity from earlier experiments. In counterfactual simulations, a Facebook-Instagram separation increases ad loads, transferring surplus from platforms and users to advertisers, with limited total surplus effects. |
| JEL: | D12 L1 L4 L86 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34028 |
| By: | Rösemeier, Jonah; Hu, Xiaoran; Nijstad, Bernard A. |
| Abstract: | Creativity and affect (moods and emotions) are inherently and intimately connected, and management research has broadly acknowledged that affective states influence creative outcomes. Despite increasing research attention, the field lacks a systematic understanding of the affect-creativity link. Moreover, although the literature increasingly views both affect and creativity as dynamic social processes, this view is not reflected in our current understanding of their relationship. Disciplinary research silos further complicate this issue. We aim to address these concerns and provide an integrative and multidisciplinary review of the affect-creativity link, moving scholarship toward a dynamic social process view of the link. We critically examine 294 empirical studies published since 2008 across various disciplines, including organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, marketing, and psychology. We review this work along four quadrants of a 2 × 2 framework (outcome-oriented vs. process-oriented research × within-creator vs. socially oriented research) to uncover the dynamic relations between affective states and creativity, along with their profoundly social nature. We subsequently integrate this work to propose our overarching dynamic social process framework of the affect-creativity link, the creativity and affect as social processes (CASP) framework. The CASP framework emphasizes that the influence of affect on creative outcomes is mediated by three complementary pathways and best understood as a function of both affective states and creative processes under consideration. Additionally, it highlights that social factors are critical in fully understanding the reciprocal and dynamic relationship between affect and creativity. |
| Keywords: | AAM requested |
| JEL: | J50 |
| Date: | 2025–06–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128660 |