Historical origins of cultural supply in Italy

Karol Borowiecki

No 3/2015, Discussion Papers on Economics from University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics

Abstract: I investigate the consequences of long-run persistency of a society’s preferences for cultural goods. Historical cultural activity is approximated with the frequency of births of music composers during the Renaissance and is linked with contemporary measures of cultural activity in Italian provinces. Areas with a one percent higher number of composer births nowadays show an up to 0.29% higher supply of classical concerts and 0.16% more opera performances. Classical concerts and opera performances have also rather bigger audiences and obtain greater revenues in provinces that have been culturally active in the past. Today, those provinces also exhibit a somewhat lower supply of other forms of entertainment (e.g., sport events), thereby implying a tantalising divergence in societies’ cultural preferences which is attributable to events rooted in the past. It is also shown that the geography of composer births is remarkably persistent over a period of seven centuries.

Keywords: Economic development; Culture; Institutions; Path dependence; Endogenous preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N33 N34 O10 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2015-02-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-his and nep-mfd
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Historical origins of cultural supply in Italy (2015)
Working Paper: History matters: The origins of cultural supply in Italy (2012)
Working Paper: History Matters: The Origins of Cultural Supply in Italy (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:sdueko:2015_003

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