American cultural policy is made and executed by multiple governmental entities, with a large part of direct public expenditure coming from sub-national governments rather than the central government. Much the largest share of government support is provided by tax concessions for gifts to...

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...

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...

Museums fulfill many important functions in the art world and visits to museums are becoming an important leisure and holiday activity. This chapter surveys research about the functioning of museums from an economic point of view. Museum services are shaped by demand and supply factors and by...

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 traces the development of markets for music over the past several centuries. Formally organized music was at first supported primarily by churches and the nobility. Indeed, during the 18th century there was a kind of "arms race" in which noble houses competed for prestige through...

This paper surveys from an economic standpoint a number of important legal issues that influence the market for art, which include the creation, sale, valuation, maintenance and, in some instances, the destruction of works of art. We show that the important legal doctrines that bear on the...

This essay addresses the definition of artistic and cultural goods by the commonsense and pragmatic assertion that they are respectively goods that carry artistic and cultural (non-economic) values. However, these categories of non-economic value are themselves highly contested and require...

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...