Charity on the English and early American model must be distinguished from philanthropy as it developed in America at the turn of the twentieth century. Philanthropy aims at the systemic eradication of social ills rather than, as does charity, at their amelioration. The general purpose...

Media industries are important drivers of popular culture. A large fraction of leisure time is devoted to radio, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, and television (the illustrative example henceforth). Most advertising expenditures are incurred for these media. They are also mainly supported...

No good comparable data on sizes of cultural sectors of the countries of Europe exist. Still, local and national governments of Europe spend substantial resources on culture and cultural sectors contribute significantly to employment and national income. After briefly describing special features...

This chapter critically assesses, from an economic viewpoint, the role of the arts and culture in urban and regional development and growth. This includes the analysis of short run spending impacts, and longer term effects on location quality and creativity. In addition, the specific...

This chapter shows how economic theory and public policy analysis can illuminate decision-making relating to cultural heritage. We argue that from an economic viewpoint the appropriate conceptualisation of heritage is as a capital asset. Regarding heritage as cultural capital invites...

While there are no significant investment characteristics that inhibit art from being considered as an asset, a major hurdle has long been the lack of a systematic measure of its financial performance. Due to its heterogeneity (each piece is different) and its infrequency of trading (the exact...

This paper contains a new review of the research of the last decade that has been designed to shed light on how the art auction system works, what it indicates about price formation, and how well it performs. We begin with a short description of the mechanics of the auction system and then...

This chapter is a continuation of ongoing work by economists and others on artists' labor markets and careers. It highlights the use of quasi-panel data obtained from census data to examine the employment and earnings of artists while comparing them to all the other professional and technical...

This chapter studies how and why artistic labor markets have expanded along a path of unbalanced growth. Long-term employment which nurtures the Baumolian cost disease persists only in large, heavily subsidized and sponsored organizations. The now dominant project-based system of production,...

This chapter analyses the tensions between books and book markets as expressions of culture and books as products in profit-making businesses and includes insights from the theory of industrial organisation. Governments intervene in the market for books through laws concerning prices of books,...