Author: Peacock, Alan T.

Publication Year: 1982

Media Type: Book

Summary:

Abstract:

Overall introduction to the collection of papers presented at Second Annual International Conference on Cultural Economics and Planning, sponsored by the Association for Cultural Economics, Mastricht, Holland, May 26-28, 1982. These essays are summarized and reviewed in expert fashion at the beginning of each Section by practised hands, and I shall not seek to emulate them. I propose to concentrate on developing three themes which penetrate the approach to cultural economics found in this work.

It was Will Baumol who invented the term magnificent dynamics in his formulation of the theories of economic development of such writers as Schumpeter and Malthus, and this is a term which might well be applied to his own highly influential Law concerning the macro-economics of unbalanced growth. Its particular application to the performed arts, as we all know, centers in the difficulties encountered in achieving productivity gains to offset a rise in real wages. If the Law holds, then growth in the output of the performed arts will increasingly depend on subsidy from some source or other, unless the income elasticity of demand for the performed arts is highly elastic.

The influence of the pioneering analysis of Baumol and Bowen is still marked and this volume is no exception. The intellectual history of economic ideas follows a familiar pattern in the mode of treatment of their thesis, for cultural economists have become particularly interested in the micro-foundations of the macro-economics of unbalanced growth. (p. 10)

This volume displays a second new development in cultural economics in which both a widening and deepening of the range of cultural pursuits is manifest. The widening process consists of the extension of the range of these pursuits beyond the performed and visual arts to cover heritage (Hendon) production and even computer games. (p. 11)

My third and last theme concerns the economist's justification for public support for the arts. It is soon found that it is very difficult to produce anything other than generalities from an argument which presupposes that Paretian welfare criteria must be met. (p. 14)

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Creative Economies