Are Composers Different? Historical Evidence on Conflict-induced Migration (1816-1997)

In this paper we explore whether, and to what extent, the incidence of war affects the migration intensity of 164 prominent classical composers born after 1800. This paper employs a novel data set, extracted from large music dictionaries. We model the aggregate stock of composers in a country and find that periods of war correspond negatively with the number of artists. In a rough comparison framework, we demonstrate that the relationship is considerably higher for composers than for the total population. We also shed some light on the decision-making processes of forced migrants and find that the stock of best and most skilled composers is mostly affected by the incidence of conflict, while the number of composers with established personal ties seems to be less impacted by wars.migration, refugee, conflict, war, geographic concentration, composer

The Determinants of House Prices and Construction: An Empirical Investigation of the Swiss Housing Economy

This paper studies the Swiss housing price determinants. The Swiss housing economy is reproduced by employing a macro-series from the last seventeen years and constructing a vector-autoregressive model. Conditional on a comparatively broad set of fundamental determinants considered, i.e. wealth, banking, demographic and real estate specific variables, the following findings are made: 1) real house price growth and construction activity dynamics are most sensitive to changes in population and construction prices, whereas real GDP, in contrary to common empirical findings in other countries, turns out to have only a minor impact in the short-term, 2) exogenous house price shocks have no long-term impacts on housing supply and vice versa, and 3) despite the recent substantial price increases, worries of overvaluation are unfounded. Furthermore, based on a self-constructed quality index, evidence is provided for a positive impact of quality improvements in supplied dwellings on house prices.Housing Demand; Housing Supply and Markets

War and Creativity: Solving the War-Art Puzzle for Classical Music Composition

The relationship between conflict and artistic output is ambiguous. This paper proposes an explanation for the contradiction in research, which we term the war-art puzzle. We employ a global sample of 115 prominent classical composers born after 1800 and link their annual productivity with the incidence of wars. We construct age-productivity profiles and find that the impact of wars on creative production is markedly heterogeneous - composers’ productivity was significantly higher during defensive or victorious international wars and lower during intra-state conflicts, offensive or lost international wars. the long-run.productivity, conflict, war, innovation, composer

Conflict-induced Migration of Composers: An Individual-level Study

In this article we explore to what extent the incidence of war affects the probability to emigrate of 164 prominent classical composers born after 1800. This study provides first insights on the decision making process of the forced migrant, the associated dynamics of conflict-induced migration and the determinants of choice of a destination country. We find that the incidence of inter-state wars increases composers’ probability to emigrate by around seven percent and the incidence of intra-state wars by roughly nineteen percent. The results imply that conflict impacts the migration intensity with a lag of approximately one year. We also find that the choice of a destination country is inefficient in times of wars.migration, refugee, conflict, war, geographic concentration, composer

Are Composers Different? Historical Evidence on Conflict-induced Migration (1816-1997)

In this paper we explore whether, and to what extent, the incidence of war affects the migration intensity of 164 prominent classical composers born after 1800. We model the aggregate stock of composers in a country and find that periods of war correspond negatively with the number of artists. We also find that conflict-induced migration intensity is considerably higher for composers than for the overall population and demonstrate that the share of composers in the overall population drops due to the incidence of war. We further find that the observed outmigration substantially diminishes the country’s creative potential in the long-run.migration, refugee, conflict, war, geographic concentration, composer

Does Competition Kill? The Case of Classical Composers

We investigate the impact of peer competition on longevity using a unique historical data set of classical composers. We measure the geographic concentration of peers by the number of composers located in the same area and the time spent in one of the main geographic clusters for classical music. Using instrumental variables, we find a significant negative effect of geographic concentration. An additional composer based in the same location decreases longevity by 2.3 years, on average. Besides the widely known economic benefits associated with competition, these findings suggest that significant negative welfare externalities exist as well.geographic concentration, well-being, mortality, culture

Geographic Clustering and Productivity: An Instrumental Variable Approach for Classical Composers

It is difficult to estimate the impact of geographic clustering on productivity because of endogeneity issues. I use birthplace-cluster distance as an instrumental variable for the incidence of clustering of prominent classical composers born between 1750 and 1899. I find that geographic clustering strongly impacts the productivity of the clustering individuals: composers were approx. 33 percentage points more productive while they remained in a geographic cluster. Top composers and composers who migrated to the cluster are the greatest beneficiaries of clustering. The benefit depends on the clustering intensity and has a long-term impact.geographic concentration, cities, mobility, productivity, urban history, composer

Historical patterns based on automatically extracted data: the case of classical composers

"The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the potential for generating interesting aggregate data on certain aspect of the lives of thousands of composers, and indeed other creative groups, from large on-line dictionaries and to be able to do so relatively quickly. A purpose-built java application that automatically extracts and processes information was developed to generate data on the birth location, occupations and importance (using word count methods) of over 12,000 composers over six centuries. Quantitative measures of the relative importance of different types of music and of the different music instruments over the centuries were also generated. Finally quantitative indicators of the importance of different cities over the different centuries in the lives of these composers are constructed. A range of interesting findings emerge in relation to all of these aspects of the lives of composers, which might provide insight and productive lines of enquiry for further work as to why certain composers were so successful in different historical periods." (author's abstract

Historical Patterns Based on Automatically Extracted Data: the Case of Classical Composers

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the potential for generating interesting aggregate data on certain aspect of the lives of thousands of composers, and indeed other creative groups, from large on-line dictionaries and to be able to do so relatively quickly. A purpose-built java application that automatically extracts and processes information was developed to generate data on the birth location, occupations and importance (using word count methods) of over 12,000 composers over six centuries. Quantitative measures of the relative importance of different types of music and of the different music instruments over the centuries were also generated. Finally quantitative indicators of the importance of different cities over the different centuries in the lives of these composers are constructed. A range of interesting findings emerge in relation to all of these aspects of the lives of composers, which might provide insight and productive lines of enquiry for further work as to why certain composers were so successful in different historical periods.cliometrics, data collection, geographic concentration, creative individual