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on Cultural Economics |
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Issue of 2026–08–24
six papers chosen by Roberto Zanola, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Van Even, Priscilla (KU Leuven) |
| Abstract: | This paper reconceptualizes the international dissemination of A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings (the Series) not merely as cultural transmission or global circulation, but as an epistemic practice of exchange that transcends disciplinary, professional, and geographical, and cultural boundaries. Drawing on perspectives from communication science, intercultural exchange, and art–science interaction, the paper examines how dissemination functions as an epistemic practice that both translates and generates knowledge. First, it situates art communication and dissemination as a site of knowledge creation and epistemic encounter rather than a passive transfer of information to audiences (communicating about art). Second, it argues that the Series enables epistemic innovation and diversity through the interaction between multiple, heterogeneous knowledge practices, facilitated by cross-cultural dialogue and inter- and transdisciplinary exchange. Finally, it discusses the interactive and engaging dissemination practices through which the Series is translated to broader audiences, focusing on experiential, sensory, and narrative forms of engagement in immersive exhibitions and digital media platforms (the art of communication). The paper argues that a significant value of the Series lies in its capacity to function as an epistemic infrastructure: one that not only transmits and circulates knowledge on Chinese art and cultural heritage, but also enables encounters between different ways of knowing and, as a result, generates new forms of understanding and epistemic diversity. |
| Date: | 2026–07–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:56xvu_v1 |
| By: | Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A. |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new framework for studying the interplay between culture and institutions. We interpret culture as a repertoire, consisting of (cultural) attributes and allowing rich cultural responses to political changes. Combinations of attributes produce cultural configurations, which provide social meaning, coordination and political justification. Our framework has several distinctive features. First, it proposes a “systems approach" to culture: the meaning and function of attributes are determined within the whole configuration and political equilibrium. Second, it emphasizes discontinuous or “saltational" changes in culture – rather than gradual, evolutionary changes – as attributes are reconnected and acquire new meanings in response to evolving circumstances and as outcomes in ongoing "cultural struggles". Third, our framework puts the spotlight on how fluidly different cultures can respond to conditions, depending on the nature of their attributes and constraints on their connections. Finally, it enriches the study of the co-determination of political, institutional and cultural outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Attributes; Culture; Discontinuity; Fluidity; Institutions |
| JEL: | P16 P50 O10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19518 |
| By: | Martin, Gregory J.; Mastrorocco, Nicola; McCrain, Joshua; Ornaghi, Arianna |
| Abstract: | Recent decades have seen major changes to the local media environment in the United States, with the absorption of many formerly independent local TV stations into conglomerates. Using a comprehensive dataset of acquisitions, we examine the effects of ownership by the three largest television conglomerates on local news advertising, content, and viewership. Conglomerate owners consistently increase advertising duration during local newscasts. We find large effects on stations’ coverage of local events and local politics, but the direction of these effects varies across owners. Despite these changes, viewer responses are minimal. We conclude by investigating downstream consequences on viewers’ political knowledge. |
| Keywords: | Local news; Media; Consolidation |
| JEL: | L10 L82 D72 P00 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19503 |
| By: | Christos A. Makridis |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how digital distribution changes the financing mix of a nonprofit performing-arts organization when audience access becomes scalable but live production remains labor intensive. The organization chooses quality, live ticket prices, and digital access to maximize quality-adjusted service subject to break-even; a donor then contributes after observing earned revenue and the mission supported by each donated dollar. The model yields three results. First, higher live-production wages raise the contribution share but reduce donations, production, and mission output. Second, for a fixed digital strategy, better distribution technology lowers the contribution share while raising donations because earned revenue and audience reach increase the mission supported by each donated dollar. Third, the organization commercializes digital access when the monetization gain exceeds the donor-valued loss from narrower access. The commercialization threshold rises with Baumol pressure and falls as digital access becomes easier to monetize. Numerical experiments with endogenous quality, ticket prices, and commercialization generate open, mixed, and commercial regimes. Donations can therefore rise even as their share of operating resources falls, while digital distribution helps finance the labor-intensive live core. |
| Keywords: | performing arts, Baumol cost disease, nonprofit finance, donations, earned income, digital distribution |
| JEL: | Z11 L31 D64 O33 Z18 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12892 |
| By: | Fernando Delbianco; Federico Fioravanti; Fernando Tohm\'e; Mart\'in Trombetta |
| Abstract: | We study the existence of a \emph{Regional Differential} in rugby sevens: whether, in tournaments where no competing team enjoys formal home status, some national sides systematically over- or under-perform depending on \emph{where} the event is staged. Using the universe of 2672 men's and women's matches from international rugby sevens tournaments played between 2016 and 2025, principally the World Rugby Sevens Series, but also the World Cup Sevens and the Olympic Games, we replace the binary ``locality'' indicator of the classic home advantage literature with continuous measures of geographic, temporal, and cultural proximity between each team and the host country. We show that aggregate associations between proximity and performance (which appear large and highly significant in naive specifications) are almost entirely an artifact of \emph{team composition} and \emph{scheduling}: once team and opponent quality are absorbed through fixed effects in a symmetric team-match panel, no general regional advantage survives. However, this null aggregate masks substantial heterogeneity. For a well-defined subset of teams (most notably France, but also New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Kenya, Samoa, and Brazil), performance declines significantly and monotonically with the distance separating the host city from home. Some of the established southern-hemisphere powers (Fiji, South Africa, Australia, Argentina) are essentially distance-neutral. We further show that for some teams the gradient operates through east-west jet lag rather than pure displacement. The Regional Differential in sevens is therefore real but \emph{team-specific} rather than universal, a distinction obscured by pooled estimation. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.16312 |
| By: | Yang, Dean (University of Michigan); Saia, Alessandro (University of Bologna); Kovvuri, Akhila (Stanford University); Ahmed, Resuf (Stanford University); Brimble, Paul (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | How does strengthened religious identity affect society and politics? We study the impact of "Ramayan, " the massively popular televised version of the Hindu epic. We conduct difference-in-differences analyses, measuring Ramayan exposure with TV signal strength in Indian localities at the time of airing in 1987. Localities with higher Ramayan exposure saw persistently strengthened Hindu religious identity, measured by the names given to newborns; increases in Hindu-Muslim communal violence during the Hindu-nationalist mobilization of the early 1990s; and longer-run increases in electoral success for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. A battery of tests indicates these effects reflect exposure to Ramayan specifically, rather than television generally. Areas with greater exposure also saw increased presence of Hindu religious schools, a potential channel behind the long-run persistence of effects. |
| Keywords: | political economy, religion, mass media, television, elections, violence, nationalism, culture, India |
| JEL: | D72 P16 Z12 |
| Date: | 2026–08–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idd:wpaper:2 |