Joanna Woronkowicz

Art-Making or Place-Making? The Relationship between Open-Air Performance Venues and Neighborhood Change

This study assesses the impact of a particular type of arts planning investment—an open-air performance venue—on a set of indicators measuring neighborhood change. Using data from the 1990 and 2000 Decennial Censuses and the 2008–2012 American Community Survey, the study analyzes relationships between the presence of an open-air performance venue and indicators of neighborhood change through a propensity score matching and a difference-in-differences model. The results show that, overall, neighborhoods with open-air performance venues are associated with expansion or growth, and less so with changes in resident composition.

The determinants of cultural building: Identifying the demographic and economic factors associated with cultural facility investment in US metropolitan statistical areas between 1994 and 2008

I use a two-part model and building permit data for all US metropolitan statistical areas between 1994 and 2008 to estimate the effects of capital and labour stock, cultural sector composition, population change, education and median household income levels on total investment in cultural facilities. The results suggest that investment in cultural facilities is associated with the existing stock of facilities, population change, education and median household income levels. Furthermore, I find preliminary evidence that demand from the cultural sector was not adequately assessed in the period investment took place.

Who Goes Freelance? The Determinants of Self-Employment for Artists:

This study examines the self-employment behavior of artists. Using data from the Current Population Survey between 2003 and 2015, we estimate a series of logit models to predict transitions from paid employment to self-employment in the arts. The results show that artists disproportionately freelance and frequently switch in and out of self-employment compared to all other professional workers. We also find that artists exhibit unique entrepreneurial profiles, particularly in terms of their demographic and employment characteristics. In particular, artist workers are considerably more likely to attain self-employment status when living in a city with a high saturation of artist occupations.

The Effects of Capital Campaigns on Local Nonprofit Ecologies

When charities launch capital campaigns, they hope to attract large amounts of resources in a relatively short period of time; however, other charities in the area are likely to see such campaigns as disruptive to the natural distribution of resources to area nonprofits by disproportionately directing area donations to a single organization. This study seeks to understand the effects capital campaigns have on both the fundraising performance of other nonprofits and the makeup of a local nonprofit ecology. The analysis uses data from a randomly sampled set of nonprofit arts organizations that had capital campaigns for facilities projects between 1994 and 2007 and Internal Revenue Service Form 990 data on 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organizations in each county. The results illustrate that a capital campaign positively affects the fundraising performance of other charities in a local nonprofit ecology, but that campaigns decrease the size of a local nonprofit ecology.

Performance Measurement as Policy Rhetoric: The Case of Federal Arts Councils

Various reforms at the federal level have led bureaucracies, including arts councils, to design and implement performance measurement systems. We still know very little about whether performance measurement has any influence on the external conditions of arts councils, or whether it serves as policy rhetoric for arts advocacy. In this article, we seek to understand the answers to these questions by conducting a case study of performance measurement at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). We conclude that there is little evidence that performance measurement at the NEA has had any appreciable effects on agency appropriation levels. Therefore, as a policy response to federally mandated performance measurement systems, arts councils might do better in focusing exclusively on metrics that capture internal efficiency, as opposed to those that serve to demonstrate performance to external constituencies.