Cultural districts and economic development

The aim of this paper is to analyze the economic properties as well as tbe institutions governing the start-up and the evolution of cultural districts. Cultural districts are a good example of economic development based on localized culture. The first part of the paper (sections 1-3) reviews the relationships between culture, viewed as an idiosyncratic good, and the theory of industrial districts. The sections 4-6 of the paper present a discussion of two models of cultural districts: the industrial cultural district (mainly based on positive externalities, localized culture, and traditions in "arts and crafts"), and the institutional cultural district (mainly based on property rights assigmnent and symbolic values). The section 7 deals with other models of quasi-industrial-districts, namely the museum cultural district (mainly based on network externalities and the search for optimal size), and the metropolitan cultural district (mainly based on communication technology,performing arts, leisure time industries and e-commerce). Policy issues will be analyzed in the final section 8. The hypothesis of a possible convergence of all districts models towards the institutional district, based on the creation of a system of property rights as a means to protect localized production will be discussed.

Market Piracy in the Design-Based Industry : Economics and Policy regulation

Market piracy in the design-based industry is an expanding worldwide phenomenon (Grossman and Shapiro, 1988a,b; Chaudhry and Walsh, 1996; Schultz II and Saprito, 1996). It deserves a great deal of attention both because of its impressive international dimension (Verma, 1996) and its intrinsic illegality, ambiguity and powerfull potential links with criminal organizations (Andreano and Sigfried, 1980; Fiorentini and Peltzman, 1995). The aim of this paper is to develop theoretical arguments about economic agents' behavior and to shed some light on the main regulatory issues of illegal markets. At a first sight the room for rational incentives to commercial piracy is self-evident. On one hand, an original backpack by the Italian stylist Prada costs, for instance, $510 in Manhattan, New York, and a bootleg copy costs$ 70 in Rome, just in front of Castel Sant'Angelo. On the other hand, the number of units sold can be impressive: as an example Louis Vuitton sells 3.5 millions units per year. Market piracy is usually noticed in sectors such as luxury goods or fashion, but piracy can also be observed in more traditional sectors such as car manufacturers, "bureautic" industry, cooking utensils, aircraft-parts and so on.

Enhancing the valorisation of UNESCO World Heritage Sites: a Pigouvian Approach

The aim of this paper is to cope with the disequilibrium affecting World Heritage Sites as to the conditions of their conservation and the resources available for their valorisation. We propose a tax-based mechanism divided into three phases. The first one aims at providing an objective approach to measure the needs and diversity of World Heritage Sites. The second phase presents valorisation strategies to generate new economic resources from cultural tourism. The third one illustrates the tax mechanism based on collecting resources trough an earmarked tax on tourist activities and redistributing these resources at a regional scale. Our proposal is a contribution to the growing literature on Unesco World Heritage sites and it may be useful to ground the decision making of the recently formed Unesco Centres aimed at raising funds for the World Heritage conservation.

Loving Cultural Heritage Private Individual Giving and Prosocial Behavior

The aim of this paper is to analyse patterns of private individual giving to Cultural Heritage institutions in Italy. Based on the emerging economic literature on pro-social behavior, we carried out a Contingent Valuation survey to assess individuals’ willingness to donate to museums and heritage organizations according to different conditions and set of incentives. Our findings reveal that intrinsic motivations and accountability of the recipient institutions may be more effective drivers for eliciting charitable giving than the usually proposed fiscal incentives. The results provide avenues for future empirical research and policy suggestions for fund raising cultural institutions.Charitable Giving, Cultural Heritage, Contingent Valuation, Pro-social Behavior

Loving Cultural Heritage. Private individual giving and prosocial behavior

The aim of this paper is to analyse patterns of private individual giving to Cultural Heritage institutions in Italy. Based on the emerging economic literature on pro-social behavior, we carried out a Contingent Valuation survey to assess individuals’ willingness to donate to museums and heritage organizations according to different conditions and set of incentives. Our findings reveal that intrinsic motivations and accountability of the recipient institutions may be more effective drivers for eliciting charitable giving than the usually proposed fiscal incentives. The results provide avenues for future empirical research and policy suggestions for fund raising cultural institutions.