You've got to know when to fold 'em. Yesterday at Indiana University we hosted Peter Frumkin, who talked about his new book (co-authored with Ana Kolendo) Building for the Arts: The Strategic Design of Cultural Facilities. The book contains a range of case studies of significant building or renovation of cultural facilities in the United States. A key finding, maybe not surprising, is the very high proportion of projects for which new revenues were highly overestimated, and costs of construction, and subsequent operations, were highly … [Read more...]

Matt Yglesias thinks there could be benefits for the economy if we had a little more Christmas. Maybe he is being tongue-in-cheek, but for what it's worth I will take him at face value: The real economic case for Christmas is macroeconomic. There's an old Keynesian saying: It takes a lot of Harberger triangles to fill an Okun Gap. Which is to say that the total amount of harm done by micro-inefficiencies is small compared with the massive harms associated with the macroeconomic slack of recessions. Most people do not realize this because … [Read more...]

Is there pay discrimination against female movie stars? Helaine Olen at Reuters thinks so. She writes: Why should we begrudge [Robert] Downey a $50 million payday for The Avengers? The film brought in $1.5 billion globally. Downey’s take was a mere 3 percent of the haul. However ... Hunger Games producers first signed [Jennifer] Lawrence to a deal in 2011. She was still a relative unknown, albeit one with an Oscar nomination on her credits. So they could sign her to play the lead, Katniss Everdeen, for less than $1 million — a relative … [Read more...]

Legislation is proposed to bring droit de suite - a rule in which some artists receive a share of proceeds from some resales of their art - to the United States. The New York Times reports here, and blog neighbour Lee Rosenbaum analyses the proposal here. I will just deal with one point. Patricia Cohen in the Times writes: Artists have long complained that unlike composers, filmmakers or writers, they do not receive a share of future sales. But that is a very partial view. All artists in all genres can receive one or both of two kinds of … [Read more...]

It never ends: production companies asking for, and getting, tax credits for local production when the economic case is cloudy, to say the least. The Washington Post reports: A few weeks before Season 2 of “House of Cards” debuted online, the show’s production company sent Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley a letter with this warning: Give us millions more dollars in tax credits, or we will “break down our stage, sets and offices and set up in another state.” ... Both seasons of “House of Cards” were filmed in Maryland, mostly in Baltimore and … [Read more...]

The Guardian reports on Swedish tax incentives: The glittering hotpants, sequined jumpsuits and platform heels that Abba wore at the peak of their fame were designed not just for the four band members to stand out – but also for tax efficiency, according to claims over the weekend. Reflecting on the group's sartorial record in a new book, Björn Ulvaeus said: "In my honest opinion we looked like nuts in those years. Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were." And the reason for their bold fashion choices lay not just in … [Read more...]

Were there people who thought '$4 is an awful lot for a pops concert, I think I'll just go for a $2 seat'? Via Matt Yglesias. … [Read more...]

My last post criticizing a recent study on the distribution of the benefits of NEA funding generated a lot of commentary. I thank everyone for contributing, and will try to respond to at least some of the points raised. First, I was not staking any claim on whether public funding of the arts is a good thing. As it turns out, I do think it is a good thing - I'll post my thoughts on this later - but all I was doing in the initial post was saying that the recent study out of SMU on arts funding was flawed. That the study was trying to say … [Read more...]

Are rich voters more likely to favor candidates from the Republican Party? The richest states by per capita income are Maryland, Alaska, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Of these five, four are pretty reliably "blue" - i.e. leaning Democrat - with Alaska being the outlier. The five poorest states by per capita income are Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Mississippi, all of which are "red" - typically Republican. So the rich actually tend to vote Democrat, right? Wrong. That inference is an example of what statisticians … [Read more...]

Today the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times report on statements from the Metropolitan Opera regarding recent changes in prices and box office revenues. The WSJ reports, under the headline "Met Opera Suffers Budget Shortfall From Pricing Backlash":       The Metropolitan Opera's $311 million budget fell short by $2.8 million last year, after a ticket price increase backfired and caused attendance to drop, according to a newly released financial-disclosure document. Last February, Met officials announced a … [Read more...]