Description
Scitus Academics LLC Advanced Introduction to Cultural Economics by Darden Varley
Cultural economics is the application of economic analysis to the creative
and performing arts, the heritage and cultural industries, in both the public
and private sectors. It is concerned with the economic organization of the
cultural sector and with the behavior of producers, consumers and governments
in that sector. The subject includes a range of approaches, mainstream
and radical, neoclassical, welfare economics, public policy and institutional
economics and it also espouses interdisciplinary analysis
connected to these topics. There have been an increasing number of studies
concerned with culture and its relationship to economic growth. Culture
affects economic activity through the choices that people make about how
to allocate scarce resources. In other terms, while culture may be a fundamental
determinant of economic activity, it acts through proximate factors
like the accumulation of capital, the adoption of technology, or labor market
participation decisions. The decisions regarding saving, technology adoption
and labor market participation are similar in that they involve some sort
of constrained optimization problem. That is, there is some budget
constraint and some utility function, and people do the best they can to
maximize utility while keeping within that budget. So if culture is going to
influence economic activity, it has to influence those constrained optimization
problems. And there are really only two options then. Either culture
influences budget constraints, or it influences utility functions.
This Book, Advanced Introduction to Cultural Economics, deals with the
theoretical development of cultural economics as a subject, the application
of economic analysis and econometrics to the field of culture, and with the
economic aspects of cultural policy. Contributions by specialist reflect
changes in the field of cultural economics over the last years. It applies
economic analysis to all of the creative and performing arts and the heritage
and cultural industries, whether publicly or privately funded. Additionally,
the book explores the economic organization of the cultural sector and the
behavior of producers, consumers, and governments within the cultural
sector. Readers will find original researches dealing with the theoretical
development of cultural economics as a subject, the application of
economic analysis and econometrics to the field of culture, and the
economic aspects of cultural policy.