The Economics of Art and Culture

Part I: 1. An overview of the arts sector; 2. Growth of the arts sector; 3. Audiences for the arts; Part II. The Microeconomics of Demand and Supply: 4. Consumer demand: an introduction; 5. The characteristics of arts demand and their policy implications; 6. Production in the performing arts; 7. Firms and markets in the performing arts; 8. Productivity lag and the financial problem of the arts; 9. The market in works of art; 10. The economics of art museums; 11. Should the government subsidize the arts?; 12. Public and/or private support for the arts in the US, Canada, and Western Europe; 13. Direct public support for the arts in the US; 14. The arts as a profession: education, training, and employment; 15. The role of the arts in a local economy; 16. The mass media, public broadcasting, and the cultivation of taste; 17. Conclusion: innovation, arts education, and the future of art and culture in the United States.

Charles M. (Mel) Gray is Professor of Business Economics in the Opus College of Business, University of St Thomas, where he has been teaching economics, strategy and nonprofit management to undergraduate and MBA students for more than 30 years. Previously he was a staff economist at the Federal Reserve Banks of St Louis and Minneapolis and for a Minnesota state agency, and he served as executive director of a community development agency. He has been a visiting or adjunct faculty member at Macalester College and the Universities of Oslo, North Carolina, Minnesota, British Columbia and Rochester. He received his BA in Social Science and Mathematics from Hendrix College and his AM and Ph.D. in Economics from Washington University. His primary research interests are the nonprofit and creative sectors, principally the nonprofit arts. He has authored or edited three books, and his publications include numerous articles and book chapters. He currently serves as editor of Nonprofit Management and Leadership, a leading research journal for the nonprofit sector. He has been a consultant to the US Department of Justice, the National Endowment for the Arts, the District of Columbia, several Minnesota state agencies and numerous companies, nonprofit organizations and trade associations.

"The economics of arts and culture are really not arcane, but arts policy-makers, arts managers and friends of the arts, as well as students and teachers, have needed an accessible guide to the subject, oriented to American conditions, for years. In the Heilbrun and Gray book we have a superb guide, comprehensible to the novice, useful to the initiated, comprehensive in coverage, up-to-date, and beautifully written." Dick Netzer, New York University