As 2024 comes to a close, we want to take a moment to thank our amazing community—scholars, researchers, and readers—for their dedication and enthusiasm in exploring and sharing trends about cultural economics.
Let’s reflect on the main economic trends and developments that have shaped the arts and culture sector in the past 12 months.
Heritage: Opportunities and Challenges of UNESCO Recognition
UNESCO designation has long been considered an opportunity, but the articles More is Worse: Shifting Perspectives on UNESCO World Heritage Sites and The Economic Impact of UNESCO World Heritage Designations: Evidence from Italy offer different perspectives. The first raises concerns about the risks of excessive UNESCO World Heritage designations, proposing stricter criteria to balance cultural preservation and sustainability, avoiding overtourism. The second presents an empirical analysis of the economic impact of UNESCO designations on tourism and regional development in Italy.
Digital Economy: Rethinking Models
Digital development poses challenges to established models in the creative and cultural industries. Examining the Potential Disruption from Ad-Supported Streaming Services discussed the economic implications of ad-supported free streaming models for artists and consumers, while the article Rethinking Music Streaming Royalties-How do we better align consumer value and artisti payments? proposed rethinking the royalty system to better balance platform profits and artists’ earnings.
Cultural Preferences and Economic Challenges: New Evidence
The blog post Songs of Optimism for Troubled Times: Music Preferences Amid Socio-Economic Challenges offered insights into music preferences during times of crisis, exploring how these preferences reflect socio-economic challenges and showing the link between social context and cultural consumption. Similarly, Cultural Capital Externalities examined the spillover benefits of cultural capital, such as its impact on education, tourism, and social well-being. How Important is the Touch When You Listen to Music?An investigation on the centrality of tactile value in live music events evaluates the importance of tactile value at live music events, revealing how tactile experiences influence economic decisions. Can it drive higher demand for in-person cultural events?
Cultural and Creative Industries: Public Policies and Transnational Cooperation
The article The Evolving Place of the Cultural and Creative Industries in Public Policies Orientation explores the growing role of cultural and creative industries in European policies, with economic and social implications. What Are Networks For? Understanding Cultural Transnational Networks in the EU investigates the importance of transnational networks for cultural cooperation in Europe.
Tourism and Creative Capital as Drivers of Competitiveness
Two articles, The Controversial Relationship Between Heritage Tourism and Local Prosperity: an empirical analysis of benefits and challenges and Does the Accumulation of Creative Capital Influence the Competitiveness of the Tourism Sector in European Regions?, explored the connection between tourism, creative capital, and local prosperity. They highlight the need for policies that leverage creativity as an economic resource and demonstrate how creative capital can enhance tourism competitiveness in European regions.
Artistic Innovation: Balancing Act
In this thematic area, Measuring the Impact of Artistic Innovation on Sustainable Development examined how art can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), suggesting new methods for evaluating art’s contribution to sustainability.
Why the Impressionists Did Not Create Impressionism uses a historical perspective to reconsider the role of market factors and institutions in the emergence of Impressionism. Assessing the Opinions of Experts and Non-Experts throught the lens of international classical music competitions analyzes differences in judgment between experts and non-experts in international music competitions, proposing improvements in transparency and fairness.
Finally, Just Instrumental to Companies’ Needs? Corporate Museums in Comparative Perspective examines the role of corporate museums in balancing marketing objectives and heritage preservation.
Cultural Economists and Conferences
2024 was a year full of meetings and reflections for cultural economists, with four key conferences highlighting the points of contact and differences between different research perspectives: AIMAC, ICCPR, ESA and EWACE.
The AIMAC 2024 was an opportunity to explore issues related to arts management, with a focus on innovative strategies and digital approaches. In particular, interdisciplinary approaches to the management of arts organisations and new perspectives on analysing the economic and social impact of cultural institutions in a post-pandemic context were highlighted. The ICCPR 2024 addressed international cultural policy issues, including implications of cultural diversity policies in the digital age, models of cultural governance in global and local contexts, and reflections on how cultural policies can respond to economic and environmental challenges. The ESA Conference 2024 reflected on the role of data and digital platforms in cultural production and fruition, the sociological analysis of artistic consumption patterns in online contexts and the need for new research lenses to address the growing complexity of the digital domain. The EWACE 2024 explored the link between cultural economy and sustainability. Among the main topics addressed were the evaluation of the economic impact of cultural policies, Methods to measure the positive externalities of cultural activities and the influence of cultural capital on local economic growth.
We wish you a all the best in the New 2025 ! ✨✨
The editorial Team
Alice, Marie, and Trilce
We hope to see you this year in Rotterdam for the 23rd International Conference on Cultural Economics organised by the Association of Cultural Economics International and the Erasmus University Rotterdam.
More information on the conference here.
Call for Papers here.
Young Researchers Workshop here.
About the image
Robert David Wilkie – The Christmas Party, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
