Do behaviours in cultural markets affect economic resilience? An analysis of Italian regions

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relation between the economic resilience and cultural behaviour, resorting to the evidence provided by 20 Italian regions at the time of Great Recession. We consider specific cultural behaviours, which provide a specific meaning of culture; its relation with the economic resilience of regions is analysed. We document that higher levels of supplied and demanded quantity of cultural goods in a region are associated with higher regional economic resilience as measured by the ability of limiting employment drop; the relation with the considered cultural behaviours is weaker in the case of economic resilience as measured by the ability of limiting income drop. We propose possible explanations for this asymmetry.

KEYWORDS:

• Regions
• economic resilience
• Great Recession
• cultural goods
• Italy

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• R39
• Z10

Acknowledgements

Part of this research was carried out during the stay of the Authors at the University of Cardiff. We thank Robert Huggins and Adrian Healy for helpful insights. We also thank an anonymous reviewer and the Editor of this journal, along with Nicholas Clifton, Chiara Dalle Nogare, Paolo Di Caro and Gianpiero Torrisi, for useful comments. Of course, the responsibility for any errors is ours.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 According to EUROSTAT (2016), the employment in cultural and creative sectors, in EU, has registered a slight but continuous increase of its share, moving from 2.4% in 2005 to 2.8% in 2011 (and 2.9% in 2015); in Italy, it has moved from 2.1% in 2005 to 2.6% in 2011 (and 2.7% in 2015).

2 Phillips and Strachan (2016) provide a specific example in the music market.

3 This review bases on Cellini and Cuccia (2015) and Cellini et al. (2017). Martin and Sunley (2015) offer a critical review on different meanings of regional resilience; Di Caro (2014) includes a review of econometric methods to assess regional resilience.

4 In Italy, the real per-capita income remained substantially stable in 2008 w.r.t. 2007, while it dropped both at the national level (–6.4%) and in each of the 20 regions in 2009; in 2010 it grew by 0.9%. These data drive to set the date of the negative shock in 2009, with little hesitation. As far as employment is concerned, it has been increasing in 2008 w.r.t. 2007, and decreasing in 2009, 2010 (in each of the 20 regions) and 2011 (in several regions); for this reason, we consider the average annual variation of employment occurred between 2009 and 2011.

5 Data from EUROSTAT (2016) on ‘writers and creative artists’ show that, in 2009, the share of self-employers in the EU was equal to 42.2%, compared to the share of 16.5 of self-employers as referred to the whole economy; while the share of self-employers in the total employment has not substantially changed in 2011, this share among ‘writers and creative artists’ has increased to 47%. In Italy the share of self-employers among ‘writers and creative artists’ was 56.7% in 2009 (63.0% in 2011), compared to the share of 25.0% of self-employers as referred to the whole economy (22% in 2011).

6 Specifically, let Z^DEM denote the average of the standardised values of all the considered variables pertaining to the demand side ( MUSATTEND , LIBRBORR, READBOOK, THEATERATT, CINEMAATT, RADIOLIST, TVWATCHER), and Z^SUP the average of the standardised values of the variables pertaining to the supply side ( MUSEUMS, UNESCOS, LIBR, EDITORS, THEATERPERF, CINEMASHOW, RADIOST, TVST). We have: Corr(Z^DEM,r^EMP) = +0.661 and Corr(Z^SUP,r^EMP) = +0.412, statistically significant at the 5% and 10%, respectively, while Corr(Z^DEM, r^GDP ) = –0.351, Corr(Z^SUP,r^GDP) = –0.222, both not-significant (10% level).

7 Detailed results available from Authors upon request.

8 On the demand side: Corr(MUSATTEND,PERCCF) = +0.636 , Corr(READBOOK,PERCCF) = +0.710, Corr(THEATREATT,PERCCF) = +0.818, Corr(CINEMAATT,PERCCF) = +0.458; on the supply side: Corr(EDITORS,PERCCF) = +0.636; Corr(THEATERPERF,PERCCF) = +0.611, Corr(CINEMASHOW, PERCCF) = +0.565.

Additional information

Funding

While no specific funds have supported this research, both Authors acknowledge the general support from the University of Catania internal research funds FIR2017.