John O’Hagan

The Wexford Opera Festival: A Case for Public Funding?

The Wexford Festival is a three-week festival of opera and associated events that is held every autumn in a small coastal town (Wexford) about 115 kilometres south of Dublin. During that period three rarely-performed operas are staged on five occasions each. About one-quarter of the income of the Festival comes directly from the state via the Arts Council and there is also a significant indirect subsidy via the provision of the services, free of charge, of the National Symphony Orchestra. Thus there is substantial public funding of the Festival, albeit, much lower as a proportion of total income, than that for similar festivals throughout Europe.

Objectives of arts funding agencies often do not map well on to societal benefits

ABSTRACT The paper addresses in some detail the possible societal benefits of state expenditure on the arts, as opposed to the intrinsic or personal benefits. Three broad categories of societal benefit are posited, namely identity and social cohesion, experimental/innovative work and economic spill-over effects. The goals/objectives of the key funding agencies in Australia, England, Ireland and New Zealand are then examined, with a view to ascertaining to what extent they map on to societal benefits. The goal of equal access for all to the arts in particular is questioned. The paper concludes by addressing the issue of how evidence can, it at all, be provided for the existence of societal benefits from public funding of the arts.

Attendance at/Participation in the Arts by Educational Level: Evidence and Issues

The socioeconomic composition of attendance at the arts has interested researchers and policy-makers for decades, with marked differences in attendance by social class, particularly educational level, persisting over time. Drawing on the 2012 US Public Participation in the Arts survey, and to a lesser extent a 2013 Eurobarometer survey, this chapter outlines attendance by educational level at arts events; and then considers differences by educational level in active participation in the arts. Such active participation includes attendance at classes in for example music or painting or dance, or creating art experiences at home or elsewhere. The reasons for the uneven pattern of attendance are then discussed and the article concludes with a short discussion of why these patterns have persisted for so long and the possible general policy implications.

Demand for Live Orchestral Music – The Case of German Kulturorchester

Summary This paper estimates a demand function for orchestras in Germany and in the process provides estimates of the impact of various determinants of demand for live orchestral music. Price and income are shown to be highly significant as are the quality factors included. The price elasticity is around -0.3 indicating price-inelastic demand and the income elasticity roughly 1.0 which is shown to be the net effect of two opposing forces, a gross income effect and a price-of-leisure effect. Additionally, two objective output characteristics which can positively influence concert attendance are examined. This analysis was undertaken by applying an exceptionally large panel data set for 79 orchestras over the period from 1972 to 2004 (1,313 observations). No previous study of orchestra demand was based on such a rich data set, nor used such a range of extensive variables. Some policy implications are considered in the concluding section.

European statistics on cultural participation and their international comparability

This paper will consider a number of issues. Section 1 will introduce the paper, establishing why reliable internationally comparable statistics on cultural participation are needed. Section 2 will address the major and various difficulties that arise in comparing national surveys, both over time and to each other. Section 3 will consider the problems that persist even with cross-national surveys for comparative purposes. Section 5 will conclude the paper with some policy recommendations.

European Statistics on Participation in the Arts and Their International Comparability

This paper is devoted to establishing why reliable internationally comparable statistics on cultural participation are needed. It addresses the major and various difficulties that arise in comparing national surveys, both over time and to each other. It considers the problems that persist even with cross-national surveys for comparative purposes. Section 5 will conclude the paper with some policy recommendations.

Rise of multi-authored papers in economics: Demise of the ‘lone star’ and why?

This paper builds on previous work by reviewing the key literature relating to the rise in co-authorship in economics and by presenting further new evidence on several features of co-authorship in articles in economic journals. The empirical analysis draws on around 175,000 articles in the top 255 journals, over the period 1996–2014. The rises in quarto-plus and cross-country co-authored papers are striking, as are the differences in citations per article and citations per author. There is evidence of an alphabetical ordering of authors as the standard in co-authored papers in top journals with no downward trend evident over time. A correlation between co-authorship and career stage is observed with young authors publishing significantly more solo-authored articles.

Migration and Clustering of Creative Workers: Historical Case Studies of Visual Artists and Composers

This chapter is about the migration and subsequent clustering of two groups of creative workers in a historical context, namely, composers and visual artists. The chapter will start by outlining why clustering of creative or any activity is of interest, covering the main potential benefits that might arise. Section 2 will outline our main empirical findings with regard to the migration and clustering of visual artists and composers. Section 3 will summarize the work that followed this, testing various hypotheses with regard to the effects of clustering and other factors on the creative output of visual artists and composers. Section 4 concludes the chapter.