An Artistic Production Function: Theory and an Application to Australian Visual Artists

David Throsby ()

Journal of Cultural Economics, 2006, vol. 30, issue 1, pages 1-14

Abstract: This paper proposes a production function for artistic output in which quantity and quality of output are specified as joint products from the inputs of labour and capital provided by individual artists. A model is constructed specifying the quantity of creative and commercial output and the quality of creative output as a function of inputs of labour time and of physical and human capital. Included in the latter is a variable to account for the contribution of creative talent to an artist's human capital. The model is estimated for a sample of practising professional visual artists and craftspeople in Australia. The results suggest that a model along the lines indicated may be taken as a plausible representation of the artistic production process. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

Keywords: artistic output; creativity; production function; talent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
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