I was recently interviewed by Nancy Fowler of St. Louis Public radio on the recent controversies surrounding the ethics policies of the Zoo-Museum District. I won't repeat the whole story here, which is best covered in Ms Fowler's piece. This is a more general observation: Public and nonprofit arts organizations rely on public support. For public agencies, that comes in terms of voter support for earmarked tax funding programs, or through the budget allocations of local, state and federal government. Nonprofits rely on public support … [Read more...]

Slate reports on the success of Cups, an app that allows people unlimited (sort of) cups of coffee from independent cafes in New York: For $45 a month, you can use the app to order as much tea and basic hot coffee as you want at any of Cups’ 28-and-counting member locations; for $85 you can add lattes, iced coffee, and other espresso-based beverages into the mix. And as part of the soft-launch, everything is free if you download the app. Everything. Until early next week. ... The genius of Cups is the notion that the best aspects of big chains … [Read more...]

About six weeks ago the Times reported on museum directors' wages, finding something of a gender gap: Women run just a quarter of the biggest art museums in the United States and Canada, and they earn about a third less than their male counterparts, according to a report released on Friday by the Association of Art Museum Directors, a professional organization. The group examined salary data on the 217 members it had last year through the prism of gender, for the first time. The report noted strides made by women at small and midsize … [Read more...]

What are the effects of an increased concentration of wealth on the art market? Writing in the New York Times, Scott Reyburn looks for a link between the theories in most newsworthy economics book of the year, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and what we are seeing at the top end of the art market: Although art is one of the few subjects not mentioned in the index of Mr. Piketty’s 685-page opus, it is worth considering how the unprecedented amounts of money the wealthy have recently been spending on trophy artworks might … [Read more...]

For a number of years I co-edited the Journal of Cultural Economics, and the core duty of the editor of a research journal is to guide through revision and publication papers that have findings new and interesting enough to advance our knowledge, and to turn away those papers that are either mistaken in their applications of theory and empirical work, or simply not all that relevant. The journal had to be selective - fewer than 20 percent of submissions were eventually published - and so a lot had to be turned away. What I found was that few of … [Read more...]

I used to love going to record stores when I was a teenager. I couldn't buy much - a back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me it would have taken me 3 or 4 hours of work at my Saturday job at the Oasis Car Wash (it's still there!) to afford one LP - but it was enjoyable to browse, and make the occasional carefully selected purchase. When my friend Mike and I would make the drive from Vancouver to Seattle we would always make a point of going to the neighborhood around UW where there was a handful of used-record shops. So I am not completely … [Read more...]

Sajid Javid has been appointed s the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. His backstory is here, and misgivings about the appointment of someone from the world of finance with no obvious affinities for the high arts are in the Guardian here and here. Blog neighbour Paul Levy writes: The only thing we really know about his interest in the arts is that he has defended ticket touts. We’ll see. I, of course, want a Culture Minister who is an opera queen, a collector of contemporary art, a theatre buff, a reader of fiction and … [Read more...]

This post takes us through health care, college sports, and opera... One of the first things arts administration students are taught about nonprofit organizations is that by law, and by definition, nonprofits are not to distribute any net earnings to managers or shareholders, but rather any revenues over costs must be applied to the mission-related activities of the organization, either through program spending or through saving it. Nonprofits that spend all of their revenues, in turn, "don't make any money." But it's not quite so simple. … [Read more...]

The New York Times reports on efforts in the music industry to coordinate lobbying: When it comes to the music industry’s lobbying efforts in Washington, it is time for some harmony. That message has gained momentum among music executives, who worry that squabbling among the various players — record labels, music publishers, artists, songwriters — will undermine broader initiatives to push for new legislation and regulatory reform. On Wednesday, the head of the organization behind the Grammy Awards will host a dinner in Washington attended … [Read more...]

The Delaware Art Museum is planning on selling some works to pay off debt. The New York Times reports here, noting that "selling works to pay for operations or capital projects is widely considered an ethical violation, a betrayal of a museum’s role of holding art in public trust" (and see Art Law Blog here). The museum released a Q&A, and it is the very last question that interests me: 14. What will happen the next time the Museum needs money? I’m worried that the Board will look at the collection as a source of revenue. It is our … [Read more...]