The Stage reports (and I repost the story in full here): Tax breaks for the theatre industry to be introduced this autumn could bring in £100 million for commercial theatre and £20 million for touring productions in coming years, Arts Council England’s chair PeterBazalgette has said. He said the initiative was a “highly significant move” from the government, whose film tax credit scheme has far exceeded original estimations that it would bring in £60 million investment a year, with the figure estimated to be worth £260 million annually. … [Read more...]

What is the best policy for an organization to follow regarding people who make reservations but then never show up? I was reading about this in the context of restaurants, some of which, as a result of the costliness of broken reservations (which result in empty tables that could have been filled by latecomers), have simply ended the practice of taking reservations at all. Tom Sietsema, in the Washington Post, is not amused: Eager to explore the Thai fireworks at Little Serow in Dupont Circle at prime time? Prepare to wait up to three … [Read more...]

A.O. Scott, in his Times article "The Paradox of Art as Work," begins: There are few modern relationships as fraught as the one between art and money. Are they mortal enemies, secret lovers or perfect soul mates? Is the bond between them a source of pride or shame, a marriage of convenience or something tawdrier? He will go on to say some interesting things about how the economy of the arts in changing, but with that paragraph - and for that matter, the title of the piece (which he didn't necessarily choose) - I think he really starts off on … [Read more...]

The Stage reports: "Study finds attending plays feels as good as a pay rise". The study was carried out at the LSE, funded by the UK Department for Culture Media & Sport. The research paper itself is an excellent piece, well-placed in the current scholarly literature on determinants of (self-reported) well-being, clearly presented, and always careful to note the limitations on what we can draw from its findings. I think where we most need to be careful is in how we interpret the research. The Stage writes: People who attend plays … [Read more...]

University of Chicago economist, and Nobel Laureate, Gary Becker, has died at the age of 83. A brief summary of his work is here, and a more complete picture given by his Nobel address, here. He is one of the most influential economists of the contemporary era. His innovations stemmed from the idea that the basic methods of traditional economics - the study of how individuals and firms make choices given the constraints and prices they face - could be applied to many, many aspects of human life: choices about investments in education and … [Read more...]

At Guardian Books, Will Self, for a forthcoming lecture, writes: I believe the serious novel will continue to be written and read, but it will be an art form on a par with easel painting or classical music: confined to a defined social and demographic group, requiring a degree of subsidy, a subject for historical scholarship rather than public discourse. He fails to convince me, but mine might be a minority view. However, I will pick up on one point. He writes: This is not to say that everyone walked the streets [in the twentieth century] … [Read more...]

I would say I'm not sure anyone will ever top this, but who can predict? Press Progress reports on a document produced by Kinder Morgan, on the beneficial economic impact of ... oil spills. The report reads: Words fail. H/T Charles Pierce @ESQPolitics … [Read more...]

Scotland has a policy of free university tuition. Today The Guardian reports: The research by Lucy Hunter Blackburn, a former civil servant with the Scottish government, estimates that free university tuition and the cuts in grants to lower-earning students means middle-class families and students will be £20m a year better. She estimates that the overall costs to lower-income families, including thousands of students at further education colleges, have gone up by at least £32m a year after the grant cuts forced them to take out larger … [Read more...]

At Salon, Laura Miller writes about literary scholar Franco Moretti, and his efforts to analyze texts in order to discover what makes a success: Miller: One of the aspects of your work that’s the most counterintuitive at first glance is that you’re not that interested in studying literary masterpieces. You study literary works in large masses, regardless of whether they’re good or not. You’re not looking at “Middlemarch”; you’re looking at 7,000 mostly mediocre Victorian novels. Why is that interesting to you? Moretti: First of all, those … [Read more...]