Beyond Price: Value in Culture, Economics, and the Arts

by Edited by Michael Hutter , David Throsby

• ISBN13: 9780521183000
• ISBN10: 0521183006
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-06-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

How do we place a value on a painting, or a piece of music, or a traditional ritual? The market can determine a price in monetary terms for a variety of cultural phenomena, but how much does that tell us about the real value of these things? This book explores the tensions between economic and cultural value from a range of disciplinary viewpoints and provides many new insights into how value is constructed in contemporary society.

Author Biography

Michael Hutter is Director of the Research Unit "Cultural Sources of Newness" at the Social Science Research Center Berlin and holds a Research Professorship at the Institute for Sociology of the Technical University Berlin. David Throsby is Professor of Economics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He has published widely on the economics of the arts and culture, including most recently The Economics of Cultural Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	p. ix
Preface	p. xv
Value and Valuation in Art and Culture: Introduction and Overview	p. 1
Origins of meaning
Creating Value between Cultures: Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art	p. 23
Entertainment Value: Intrinsic, Instrumental, and Transactional	p. 41
Creating Artistic from Economic Value: Changing Input Prices and New Art	p. 60
The Creation of value in Artistic work
The Creation of Value by Artists: The Case of Hector Berlioz and the Symphonie Fantastique	p. 75
Art, Honor, and Excellence in Early Modern Europe	p. 89
Rubbish and Aura: Archival Economics	p. 106
Continuity and innovation
Value in Yolngu Ceremonial Song Performance: Continuity and Change	p. 127
The Ritual and the Promise: Why People Value Social Ritual	p. 141
"More than Luther of These Modern Days": The Construction of Emerson's Reputation in American Culture, 1882-1903	p. 159
Appreciation and Ranking
Quantitative Approaches to Valuation in the Arts, with an Application to Movies	p. 179
Confluences of Value: Three Historical Moments	p. 200
The Intrinsic Value of a Work of Art: Masaccio and the Chapmans	p. 220
Time and Preferences in Cultural Consumption	p. 236
Cultural Policies
What Values Should Count in the Arts? The Tension between Economic Effects and Cultural Value	p. 261
The Public Value of Controversial Art: The Case of the Sensation Exhibit	p. 270
Going to Extremes: Commercial and Nonprofit Valuation in the U.S. Arts System	p. 283
Index	p. 299
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