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Michael Rushton on pricing the arts

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A primer on price discrimination

March 20, 2013 by Michael Rushton 2 Comments

who knows their reservation prices?

My previous two posts dealt with different aspects of price discrimination, and since many future posts will cover the topic from various angles, I think it worthwhile to go over a few basic ideas and definitions. Marginal cost will be defined here as the cost to your arts organization of serving one more customer. It might be one more person through the turnstiles of your museum, one more person taking a seat for your performance or festival. For the examples just given, marginal cost might be very close to zero - it costs nothing at all to … [Read more...]

Michael Rushton

Michael Rushton taught in the Arts Administration programs at Indiana University, and lives in Bloomington. An economist by training, he has published widely on such topics as public funding of the … MORE

About For What It’s Worth

What’s the price? Everything has one; admission, subscriptions, memberships, special exhibitions, box seats, refreshments, souvenirs, and on and on – a full menu. What the price is matters. Generally, nonprofit arts organizations in the US receive about half of their revenue as “earned income,” and … [Read More...]

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