|
on Cultural Economics |
|
Issue of 2026–11–02
five papers chosen by Roberto Zanola, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Klaus Wohlrabe; Gerome Wolf |
| Abstract: | Popular music charts changed what they measure when streaming replaced sales. A purchase-based chart records acquisition, and a purchase extinguishes the demand it registers; a streaming chart records use, and every play counts anew. Demand that recurs on a fixed schedule for a fixed repertoire was therefore invisible to the sales-era instrument and fully visible to its successor. Using daily Spotify Top 200 charts for Germany (2017-2025) matched to audio features, and weekly chart data spanning 1977-2025, we show that seasonality in the acoustic character of charted music is a phenomenon of the streaming era: absent before 2015, growing steadily since, and dominated by Christmas. On December 24 streaming volume reached 4.6 times the annual daily mean in 2024, up from 2.9 in 2017, and the charts shift sharply toward high acousticness and low energy. The pattern is selective across twenty holidays: Easter, which shares Christmas's family character, produces no acoustic effect at all, while New Year's Eve moves the charts in the opposite direction. The December peak is carried by a fixed and aging catalog, but age is that catalog's property rather than its cause: on an ordinary day old recordings are less acoustic and more energetic than contemporary releases, so a shift in age composition alone would move December the wrong way. The December component of any series built from these charts therefore reflects the recirculation of a fixed historical catalog rather than contemporary listening, with direct consequences for the seasonal adjustment of music-based sentiment indicators. |
| Keywords: | streaming platforms, digital music markets, chart measurement, seasonality, Spotify, audio features, catalog repertoire |
| JEL: | L82 L86 D12 Z11 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13074 |
| By: | Marion Payen (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Patrick Rondé (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Are culture and institutions complementary or substitutable? Theoretically, Douglass North highlights that culture and institutions form an institutional matrix which ‘is characterized by […] complementarities'. This relationship of complementarity means that the institution's effect on economic performance would depend on culture. To test this complementarity hypothesis, we create new measures of culture and institutions and include their interaction term into an endogenous growth model. We use the Institutional Profiles Database and conduct a factor analysis to create good governance and degree of state intervention indicators to measure institutions. We measure culture by the grid and group dimensions of Mary Douglas's cultural theory and use the World Values Survey database to estimate them. Then, we show that for countries characterised by good governance, a marginal increase in culture will strongly affect growth, while the effect tends to zero for countries with bad institutional quality. Second, the marginal effect of an increase in the quality of institutions on growth will be stronger if the country is characterised by a ‘religion-centred' culture. So, our results support the complementarity hypothesis. Regarding policy-making, this result paves the way for institutional reforms more in line with people's cultural heritage. |
| Keywords: | Informal institutions, Formal institutions, Economic growth, Complementarity |
| Date: | 2025–05–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05777572 |
| By: | Didier Christophe (ENSFEA - École Nationale Supérieure de Formation de l'Enseignement Agricole de Toulouse-Auzeville, LLA-CREATIS - Lettres, Langage et Arts – Création, Recherche, Émergence en Arts, Textes, Images, Spectacles - UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse, EFTS - Education, Formation, Travail, Savoirs - UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - ENSFEA - École Nationale Supérieure de Formation de l'Enseignement Agricole de Toulouse-Auzeville) |
| Abstract: | This communication studies a sociocultural reality that can no longer be kept hidden: many productions by contemporary artists have for the theme of societal or sociotechnical transitions. Then, artistic actions allow to accompany these transitions, to anticipate and/or document them. While taking care to recall historical landmarks, through the evocation of artists and researchers, we will seek to clarify artistic approaches in the field that focus on linking artistic production, knowledge production, reassessment of awareness-raising practices and issues. First, it is a matter of identifying and differentiating protocols and practices, the alliance of postures as an artist and as a socioanthropologist, and especially that of a participating observer often adopted and assumed in this type of artistic approach. We also need to explore the point of transition towards these choices of artistic themes, as well as the reasons for engagement and the chosen protocol. This approach, through the different options, references and modalities developed, makes it possible to identify five key axioms. |
| Abstract: | Cette communication se propose d'aborder une réalité socioculturelle qu'on ne peut plus tenir cachée : de nombreuses productions d'artistes contemporains se donnent pour thème des transitions sociétales ou sociotechniques. Des actions artistiques permettent alors de d'accompagner ces transitions, pour les anticiper et/ou les documenter. Tout en prenant le soin de rappeler des repères historiques, à travers l'évocation d'artistes et de chercheurs, nous chercherons à expliciter des démarches artistiques de terrain qui s'attachent à lier production artistique, production de connaissance, réévaluation des pratiques et enjeux de conscientisation. Il s'agit d'abord repérer et différencier les protocoles et les pratiques, l'alliance des postures d'artiste et de socioanthropologue, et la notamment celle d'observateur participant souvent adoptée et assumée dans ce type de démarche artistique. Il faut aussi sonder le point de basculement vers ces choix de thématique artistique, et les raisons d'engagement ainsi que le protocole choisi. Cette approche, à travers les différentes options, saisines et modalités développées, permet de repérer cinq axiomes déterminants. |
| Date: | 2026–09–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05804557 |
| By: | Federico Corredor (Public Finance Research Cluster, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University); Nadia Farooq (Public Finance Research Cluster, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University); Carlianne Patrick (Public Finance Research Cluster, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | We study whether a large place-based subsidy can do more than attract highly mobile economic activity by examining Georgia's 2008 expansion of its Film Tax Credit. Using synthetic difference-in-differences with alternative donor pools, we estimate effects on production location and industry scale; we then use a national DDD design to examine worker outcomes. The credit increased Georgia's share of U.S. film projects by 12.6 percentage points and film budgets by 18.9 percentage points. Film-industry employment also increased substantially, with the largest gains emerging several years later, while evidence for wages, establishments, and related industries is more qualified. Worker outcomes improve, but migration and pretrend concerns limit claims about long-term incumbent residents. Over 2013-2019, generated credits amount to roughly $68, 000 per additional job-year relative to the counterfactual. The results show that successful attraction can produce substantial industry scaling without necessarily establishing broad spillovers, incumbent gains, or self-sustaining local development. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:cslfwp:cslf2602 |
| By: | Lopes, Marcel Felipe Machado; Lopes, Paula Roméro Cajaty |
| Abstract: | Governments are among the largest single buyers of books, yet public procurement research rarely asks what state purchasing does to the diversity of the market it buys from. This article examines federal book procurement in Brazil using item-level electronic invoice (NF-e) data published by the Office of the Comptroller General (CGU). The data cover 60 months between October 2021 and September 2026 and R$21.9 billion in purchases, 96.7% of which were made by a single buyer, the National Fund for Education Development (FNDE). Drawing on Stirling's variety–balance–disparity framework, we build five indicators of bibliodiversity: supplier concentration (Herfindahl–Hirschman index), the share of the four and eight largest suppliers, supplier evenness, title evenness, and territorial inequality among suppliers. The results describe a market with high variety but low balance. A median of 280 suppliers invoice the federal government each month, yet the four largest take a median 68% of value, and two publishers, FTD and Moderna, account for 45% of the whole series. Concentration is episodic rather than trending: 13 of 60 months exceed the HHI threshold of 2, 500, with no significant monotonic trend. Territorial inequality is extreme and stable (median Gini 0.93), with São Paulo-based emitters taking 93% of value. Title diversity falls when supplier concentration rises (Spearman ρ = −0.61) and has declined sharply since mid-2025. We read these patterns against transaction cost, principal–agent, competition, strategic-procurement and institutional theories. We argue that, in markets for unique cultural goods purchased without price competition, the locus of competition moves from the tender to the pre-selection stage, so programme design rather than tendering rules becomes the main lever for diversity. We derive five propositions and discuss the data-quality limits of invoice-based procurement analytics. |
| Date: | 2026–10–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:eky7w_v1 |