At Time magazine, Alex Melamid suggests it can, that the infantilism found in (some) works of modern art has led us, in the end, to an infantile president of the United States: Whatever the intelligentsia nurtures and celebrates in our galleries and academic journals is bound to flow eventually into the nation’s cinemas, through its ballot boxes and toward the swamp of Washington, D.C. The last few months have proven that Trump is not out to drain that swamp. He is its progeny, and we on the left — the artists, the people of culture — have … [Read more...]

Barry's Blog has thoughts on this. He points out, correctly I think, that while individual airline companies - Delta, Virgin, Qantas - try to create a brand image of their own, there is also in the public mind an idea of the airline sector as a whole. When one airline treats a customer badly, it does not just reflect on that one airline, but also affects the public perception of airline travel on the whole. And so he asks: What is the Arts Brand - not that of any individual arts organization - but the whole of the arts? I admire his taking … [Read more...]

In my last post I wrote about cost disease, the powerful analysis of economic shifts that results from labor-saving technological change occurring at different speeds in different sectors of the economy. This is an addendum: cost disease explains some changes in costs and prices, but not all of them. It explains why school districts struggle to attract teachers and balance budgets, but it doesn't explain why it costs so much to attend Wellesley. It explains why it's hard for high schools to find bands they can afford to perform at school … [Read more...]

Professor William Baumol, one of the greatest living economists, has died at the age of 95. Alan Krueger did an interview with him here, and Tyler Cowen has written often about him, here. Readers of artsjournal.com know him best for his conception of cost disease, done jointly with William Bowen. Here is a nice concise presentation from 1965. In a nutshell, there is the idea that wages in the live performing arts will be pressed ever upwards even though there are few labor-saving technologies available to arts organizations to keep costs in … [Read more...]

The New York Times reported that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is looking at options to make its "suggested" entry fee into something a little stronger than a hint, at least for people who live outside the city or state. A few years ago Derek Thompson reported that about six out of ten visitors do not pay the full suggested fee, and so the numbers at stake are large. What can we say about this? It's a bit over the top to refer to charging those visitors who reside outside the local tax base that supports the museum, but not residents, as … [Read more...]

I was once a censor. Years ago, I was Dean of the school of fine arts on a Canadian university campus. The school had a degree program in film production, a somewhat free-wheeling operation. One day a parent of a twelve-year old phoned me, to say she had found in her son's room a script of a student film in which her boy had been invited to play a minor role. She was appalled by what she saw, and forwarded me a copy. The script, in addition to many problems, not the least of them the legality of involving a minor, was also viciously … [Read more...]

Followers of this blog are familiar with my thoughts on 'economic impact' studies. But I think I have forgotten to mention yet another way in which these studies are not only useless, but positively harmful. (This was suggested by an exchange with Ian David Moss in my previous post's discussion thread). A consensus has been emerging that there has been a significant degree of overbuilding of large scale cultural facilities, where by 'overbuilding' we mean construction whose costs far exceed the resulting benefits. What might have contributed … [Read more...]

At Stanford Social Innovation Review, Ian David Moss has a thoughtful blog post on whether there is coherence in the notion of separating intrinsic and instrumental benefits from the arts. He writes: One problem with the intrinsic vs. instrumental distinction is that it’s something of a false dichotomy: Interrogate a dedicated arts supporter about why she believes funding is important, and you’ll eventually uncover reasons that are not specific to the arts. The arts teach us how to see and understand the world? So do history books. The arts … [Read more...]

At Bloomberg, Tyler Cowen posts some recommendations on US federal government arts policy. He has written at length about this in his book Good and Plenty; here he gives some ideas for the new administration. The thing I always enjoy about Cowen - especially in his blog - is his ability to put fresh ideas out there as sparks for discussion; this is particularly important in arts policy, which is, especially in the US, conservative and hesitant about any departures from the status quo, save for appeals for more money. He limits himself thus: I … [Read more...]