Under a variety of assumptions, subsidized bidding for creative resources fails to spur economic growth. First, under many conditions, the resource would find an optimal location in any case. Second, the bid may be good for a winning city's economy, but bad for the arts more generally. The bid...

Americans agree about government arts funding in the way the women in the old joke agree about the food at the wedding: it's terrible--and such small portions! Americans typically either want to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts, or they believe that public arts funding should be...