History – CulturalEconomics

In 1973, Professor William Hendon of the University of Akron, Ohio, founded the Journal of Cultural Economics and he organized the first international conference on cultural economics, at Edinburgh in 1979. He also started an Association for Cultural Economics (ACE) that held conferences in collaboration with host organizations in Maastricht, Netherlands (1982), Akron, Ohio, USA (1984), Avignon, France (1986), Ottawa, Canada (1988), Umea, Sweden (1990) and Fort Worth, Texas, USA (1992). In 1993, the ACE was transformed into the presently organized ACEI as a membership society with the election for officers and the adoption of the constitution.

Later that year, the ACEI entered into an agreement with Kluwer Academic Publishers, which had acquired the Journal of Cultural Economics from Professor Hendon, under which the Journal became the official journal of the Association. Kluwer was taken over by Springer in 2005.

Prizes and honours

Previous winners of the Pommerehne Prize

2018: “Artworks without names: an insight into the market for anonymous paintings,” Anne-Sophie Radermecker. Vol. 43, no. 3, September 2019

2016: “Prices for superstars can flatten out,” Luc Champarnaud. Vol. 38, no. 4, November 2014; “Digital complements or substitutes? A quasi-field experiment from the Royal National Theatre,” Hasan Bakhshi & David Throsby. Vol. 38, no. 1, February 2014
2014: “Selling less of more? The impact of digitization on record companies,” Marc Bourreau, Michel Gensollen, Francois Moreau, & Patrick Waelbroeck. Vol. 37, no. 3, August 2013
2012: “The impact of the Droit de Suite in the UK: An empirical analysis,” Chanont Banternghansa & Kathryn Graddy. Vol. 35, no. 2, May 2011; “Product differentiation and film-programming choice: Do first-run movie theatres show the same films?,” Darlene C. Chisholm, Margaret S. McMillan, & George Norman. Vol. 34, no. 2, May 2012
2010: “Art versus commerce in the movie industry: A two-path model of motion picture success,” Morris Holbrook & Michela Addis. Vol. 32, no. 2, June 2008
2008: “Distributors and film critics: Does it take two to tango?,” S. Abraham Ravid, John K. Wald, & Suman Basuroy. Vol. 30, no. 3, December 2006
2006: “Employing travel time to compare the value of competing cultural organizations,” Jaap Boter, Jan Rouwendal, & Michel Wedel, Vol. 29, no. 1, February 2005
2004: “Using stated-preference questions to investigate variations in willingness to pay for preserving marble monuments: Classic heterogeneity, random parameters, and mixture models”, Edward Morey & Kathleen Greer Rossmann. Vol. 27, no. 3-4, November 2003

2002: “Efficiency and inefficiency in the ranking in competitions: The case of the Queen Elisabeth Music Contest,” Herbert Glejser & Bruno Heyndels. Vol. 25, no. 2, May 2001

Previous winners of the Presidents’ Prize

2018: “Measuring changes in subjective well-being from engagement in the arts, culture and sport,” Daniel Wheatley (University of Birmingham) & Craig Bickerton (Nottingham Trent University)
2016: “Fairness constraints on profit-seeking: Evidence from the German club concert industry,” Hendrik Sonnabend (FernUniversitat, Hagen)
2014: “Time spent on new songs: Word-of-mouth and price effects on teenager consumption,” Noemi Berlin (University of Edinburgh), Anna Bernard (University of Paris-I), & Guillaume Furst (University of Geneva)
2012: “Effects of culture on firm risk-taking: A cross-country and cross-industry analysis,” Roxana Mihet (University of Oxford)
2010: “Clustering does not always benefit the artistic output: New evidence for classical composers,” Karol Jan Borowiecki (Trinity College, Dublin)
2008: “Estimation of demand function for German public theatre: The importance of allocation of leisure time and quality factors for the consumption of performing arts,” Marta Zieba (Trinity College, Dublin)
2006: “The sales effect of word of mouth: A model for creative goods and estimates for novels,” Jonathan Beck (Wissenschaftzentrum Berlin, Humboldt University)
2004: “Art for the masses? Justification for the public support of the arts in developing countries: Arts festivals in South Africa,” Jeanette Snowball (Rhodes University, South Africa)
2002: “De Re Coquinaria: The recipe for success in french gastronomy, does creativity matter?” Veronique Chossat (University of Rheims) & Olivier Gergaud (University of Rheims and University of Paris-I)
2000: “The determinants of artistic innovation: Bringing in the role of organizations,” Xavier Castañer (University of Minnesota) & Lorenzo Campos (iSOCO, Spain)

Previous conferences

The ACEI has organized plenary conferences biennially and occasional workshops and symposia. Papers from these meetings have often been published in the Journal of Cultural Economics (JCE); for some, a book has also been edited by the conference organiser(s).

2018: 20th ACEI International Conference, Melbourne, Australia
(abstracts available here; draft papers available here )

2016: 19th ACEI International Conference, Valladolid, Spain
(papers available here)
2014: 18th ACEI International Conference, Montreal, Canada
(papers available here)
2012: 17th ACEI International Conference, Kyoto, Japan
2010: 16th ACEI International Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark
2008: 15th ACEI International Conference, Boston, USA
2006: 14th ACEI International Conference, Vienna, Austria
2004: 13th ACEI International Conference, Chicago, USA
2002: 12th ACEI International Conference, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2000: 11th ACEI International Conference, Minneapolis, USA
(plenary papers published in JCE, vol. 25, no. 4, 2001)
1998: 10th ACEI International Conference, Barcelona, Spain
(plenary papers published in JCE, vol. 23 nos. 1-2, 1999)
1996: 9th ACEI International Conference, Boston, USA
(plenary papers published in JCE, vol. 20 no. 3, 1996)
1994: 8th ACEI International Conference, Witten/Herdecke, Germany

Previous workshops and symposia

2019: ACEI co-sponsored the South American Workshop on Cultural Economics with Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, December 5-6.; ACEI co-sponsored the Fifth North American Workshop on Cultural Economics with the Southern Economic Association (running as part of the Southern Economic Association Conference), Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States, November 23-25.; ACEI co-sponsored the Ninth European Workshop on Applied Cultural Economics with Copenhagen Business School and the University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, September 5-7.; ACEI co-sponsored the Fifth Asian Workshop on Cultural Economics with RMIT University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, July 10-12.
2007: ACEI co-sponsored the Third European Workshop on Applied Cultural Economics in Oviedo, Spain, June 14-16 (for information contact Professor Roberto Zanola).
2000: ACEI co-sponsored the International Conference on Copyright and Cultural Industries with Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands (papers published in Towse, R. (ed.) 2002. Copyright in the Cultural Industries, Edward Elgar Publishing).
1999: ACEI co-sponsored a symposium ‘Artists’ Career Development, Artists’ Labour Markets Support and Policies for Artists’ with the Japanese Association of Cultural Economists, Tokyo (papers available in a proceedings volume).
1998: ACEI co-sponsored a weekend conference on the Economics of Museums with the Department of Economics at the University of Durham, UK (papers published in JCE vol 22. Nos.2-3, 1998).
1997: ACEI co-sponsored the Workshop on the Economics of Artists and Art Policy with the Arts Council of Finland in Helsinki, Finland (papers published in Heikkinen, M. and T. Koskinen (eds.) 1998. Economics of Artists and Arts Policy, Arts Council of Finland, Helsinki).
1995: ACEI co-sponsored the International Symposium on Economic Perspectives of Cultural Heritage with the University of Catania, Italy (papers published in Hutter, M. and I. Rizzo (eds.) 1997. Economic Perspectives on Cultural Heritage, Macmillan).

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By Massimo Finocchiaro Castro, Isidoro Mazza and Domenica Romeo To what extent do cultural goods contribute to increase society’s level of cultural capital? Greater satisfaction for cultural goods consumption and voluntary contributions is linked to the highest levels of cultural capital. Social approval deriving from donations is positively related to society’s existing cultural capital and... […]
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By Enrico Bertacchini, Alessandra Venturini and Roberto Zotti Migration has become in the last decades one of the most overarching phenomena at the global level. Much of the academic and policy debate has focused on the determinants of economic and social integration at receiving societies, but very little attention has been devoted on migrants’ engagement... […]
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