Economics of Culture : New Aspects & New Trends

The aim of this book is to incorporate the main idea that culture is directly related to economic activity, in economic analysis, from a multidisciplinary perspective. From this very first perception, several difficulties appear. First of them are related to the use of rigorous and testable methodologies that could allow the quantification of the value of an artistic work, and even the consideration of what an artistic work could be. In the book, we also try to present these problems from an extensive perception, in order to take into account, not only aspects strictly related to economics, but also to the interdependence of arts and culture with a wide amount of different perspectives of economic analysis. The book is mainly structured into two parts. The first is to introduce a discussion on the value of culture and the value of artistic works. This discussion opens the door to an essential idea in the economics of culture such as the theoretical foundations to estimate the value of art and culture, and the relevance of the existence an artistic work. The second part of this work is mainly concerned with different economic issues related to arts and culture, under a multidisciplinary methodology. Specifically, in this part of the book, eleven papers are included, in which different issues related to culture economics are proposed and analysed from economic, social, institutional and environmental perspectives.