Information externality in the arts and the public intervention: a brief note

The presence of information externality, and the consequent necessity of public intervention to amend the effect of market failure, has been deeply analysed in the case of scientific research. In this Note we argue that the same point is particularly appropriate also in the case of arts: the presence of information externality concerning the personal skills of artists can represent a valid reason to believe that purely private funding of arts is inefficient, and to call for public intervention in this sector.Arts; Experimentation; Financing; Incomplete Information; Bayes theorem

Are exchange rates really free from seasonality? An exploratory analysis on monthly time series

This article questions the assumption that exchange rates are non-seasonal and provides selected evidence of monthly time series of exchange rates in which significant seasonal components are present. However, the seasonal component appears to be absent in more recent data. Tentative explanations are suggested.Seasonality; Exchange rates

Museum and monument attendance and tourism flow: A time series analysis approach.

This paper takes a time series analysis approach to evaluate the directions of causality between tourism flows, on the one side, and museum and monument attendance, on the other. We consider Italy as a case study, and analyze monthly data over the period January 1996 to December 2007. All considered series are seasonally integrated, and co-integration links emerge. We focus on the error correction mechanism among co-integrated time series to detect the directional link(s) of causality. Clear-cut results emerge: generally, the causality runs from tourist flows to museum and monument attendance. The non-stationary nature of time series, their co-integration relationships, and the direction of causal links suggest specific implication for tourism and cultural policies.Tourism; Museum; Seasonal unit root; Co-integration; Causality.

Workers' enterprises in the case of arts production

This paper shows that the standard result according to which labour-managed firms produce a lower amount of output, as compared to profit-maximising firms, is reversed if production per se gives utility and the workers’ membership of labour-managed firms is set prior to market decisions. Under the same hypotheses, the labour-managed firms set a higher product quality than the profit-oriented ones, ceteris paribus. The considered hypotheses are particularly relevant for the case of the performing arts sector, so that the presence of labour-managed firms should be particularly welcomed in this sector.workers'enterprises; labour managed firms; arts

UNESCO sites as public goods: comparative experiences in Italy

The inclusion of a site in the UNESCO World Heritage List is a “recognition” that can be interpreted as alocal public good. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the UNESCO recognition in promoting tourism and, more generally, local economic development. We document relevant performance differences across Italian UNESCO sites. We argue that the relevant key factor is the ability of generating additional public goods, starting from the process of recognition. The most recent approach of UNESCO in selecting the sites to include in its list underlines the importance of the immaterial culture embedded in the sites, and the role of local communities in their relationships with the environment and heritage: this is interpreted as a sign of the importance which has to be due to the generation of common goods for making the UNESCO recognition an effective tool to preserve heritage and to use it to promote economic, social and cultural development

Information externality in the arts and the public intervention: a brief note

The presence of information externality, and the consequent necessity of public intervention to amend the effect of market failure, has been deeply analysed in the case of scientific research. In this Note we argue that the same point is particularly appropriate also in the case of arts: the presence of information externality concerning the personal skills of artists can represent a valid reason to believe that purely private funding of arts is inefficient, and to call for public intervention in this sector

Workers' enterprises in the case of arts production

This paper shows that the standard result according to which labour-managed firms produce a lower amount of output, as compared to profit-maximising firms, is reversed if production per se gives utility and the workers’ membership of labour-managed firms is set prior to market decisions. Under the same hypotheses, the labour-managed firms set a higher product quality than the profit-oriented ones, ceteris paribus. The considered hypotheses are particularly relevant for the case of the performing arts sector, so that the presence of labour-managed firms should be particularly welcomed in this sector