The Center for Cultural Affairs at Indiana University has developed a lively workshop series the past few years, and everyone is welcome to attend. They generally occur every two weeks, 12:00 noon Eastern (US) time, and last (strictly!) one hour. This Wednesday, March 22, the Center welcomes Professor Ken Elpus of the University of Maryland School of Music, who will discuss "Antecedents and Consequents of K-12 Music & Arts Education in America”. You can register here, and it will be via Zoom. On Friday, March 24, at Noon (until 1:30) … [Read more...]

In the US, in 1900, over 40 percent of the workforce was devoted to agriculture. Agriculture's share of GDP was 7.7 percent in 1930, 6.8 percent in 1945, 2.3 percent in 1970, and is less than 1 percent today, according to this study from the USDA. According to this study from Peterson-KFF, health care in the US, as a percentage of GDP, has risen from around 7 percent in 1970, to 13.3 percent in 2000, to 18.3 percent in 2021. These numbers are certainly interesting in gaining an understanding of economic trends. Baumol and Bowen's theory … [Read more...]

A few days ago I wrote a post re Valparaiso University's plans to sell three paintings, with an estimated total market value of $10 million, to deal with its rather dire financial situation, and to make investments seen necessary to attract students, whose numbers have fallen dramatically over the past decade. This generated some replies, which I am always grateful to receive. One respondent wrote: The university should donate the art to another museum if it can’t keep or care for the pieces and it should begin to sell off its real … [Read more...]

You are the president of a small, private liberal arts college that has fallen on hard times. Your enrolment has declined by 39% since 2016, you have had to cut academic programs, and your dormitories are badly in need of repair - attracting students is of paramount concern, but there are few funds available. Your campus has an art museum that holds 5,000 works, though none of them of any outstanding value. One morning you get a call from an alumnus who has done well for himself, and he says "I am giving the university $10 million; I want you … [Read more...]

John Maynard Keynes's “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” was first published in The Nation and Athenæum in two parts, October 11 and 18, 1930 (it is reprinted in his Essays in Persuasion). In it, Keynes tries to put to one side the contemporary fluctuations and uncertainty in the world economy at that time, and take a very long view, one hundred years hence. He notes, with the aid of those examples of the application of compound interest of the sort we teach to schoolchildren, that were the rates of technological change and, in … [Read more...]

In my last post I expressed skepticism that movie cinemas in the US could "scale the house" with much success (people were quick to tell me "But in Europe, but in New York", which is fair, but I'm talking the multiplex in Bloomington here). I mentioned in passing that cinemas do use price discrimination, but at the concession stand - keeping ticket prices somewhat low, to attract customers generally on the fence about coming to the movies, but recognizing that your avid moviegoers are most happy to load up at the concession stand, and you can … [Read more...]

US cinema chain AMC has announced it will start to have differential prices for movie seating: Three pricing tiers will soon be offered. For example, the highest-end “Preferred” tier are in the middle of the theaters and will be priced at a “slight premium” compared to its “Standard” tier, which the theater chains says will remain the most common choice and will be sold for the “traditional cost of a ticket.” The third tier is called “Value,” which are seats in the front row of theaters and will cost less than than its “Standard” … [Read more...]

Still a work in progress, but a draft essay summarizing the economic approach to public funding for the arts is available here for (free) download. Public goods and externalities, there's no disputing tastes, or maybe there is, nudges, merit goods, Leonard Bast, The Children of Men, contingent valuation, and an attempt to define neoliberalism. I finish by citing this most highly recommended essay: David Throsby (2003) gets to the heart of the issue: there might be “cultural value” in the arts,  “their aesthetic properties, their … [Read more...]

There are two ways to approach equity, which I'm going to define as a fair or just set of entitlements or outcomes among people, not necessarily equal, but fair. One way is to focus on people's disposable income: what are people able to buy for themselves? How they spend their money is not the primary concern. If you and I have equal disposable income, and face the same prices when we shop, what does it matter if you spend more on rent and less on going out than I do, if we each have the same options? There are some economists, typically … [Read more...]

My previous post was here. A lot of writing today, so this entry a bit longer and in the weeds than usual... In economic analysis, of arts funding or anything else, people's preferences are assumed to be “rational”, which here has the narrow definition of consistency (If I prefer the blue tie to the red tie, and prefer the red tie to the green tie, rationality means I must therefore prefer the blue tie to the green tie, but not much else), and does not question the ends for what the consumer buys. Economics also works on the assumption that … [Read more...]