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World Cities Summit Issue, Jun 2008
Cities, Culture and Happiness
Bruno S. Frey
The finding that the consumption of art raises happiness also has policy implications. It adds a novel answer to the question of why government should support culture. Up to now, the literature on the Economics of Art argued that the existence of positive externalities, in the form of education, existence, option and bequeath values,8 legitimises government intervention. Happiness research points to an additional reason, namely, that attending cultural events increases people’s life satisfaction. The consumption of culture is, to a considerable degree, an experienced good, i.e., many persons appreciate the good only after they have consumed it. People are insufficiently aware, and perhaps some not at all, that culture is a source of happiness.22 This fact legitimises the support of the arts for a restricted period of time, until those induced to visit cultural events have become fully aware of the positive effect on their subjective well-being.
This essay demonstrates that cities, culture and happiness are closely intertwined. It also suggests direct consequences worth considering as an important element of a visionary public policy.
Bruno S. Frey is Professor of Economics at the Institute of Empirical Research in Economics at the University of Zurich. He is also a Visiting Professor at ETH-Zurich. Professor Frey co-founded the Centre for Research in Economics, Management and Arts (CREMA) in Switzerland, of which he is Research Director. A leading researcher and thinker in the area of welfare economics, Professor Frey currently researches economics and psychology, economics of art and culture, and political economics. Some of his books include Happiness: A Revolution in Economics (MIT Press, 2008), Economics and Psychology: A Promising New Cross-Disciplinary Field (MIT Press, 2007), Happiness and Economics (Princeton University Press, 2001), Successful Management by Motivation: Balancing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations (Springer, 2001), and Arts & Economics: Analysis & Cultural Policy, 2nd ed (Springer, 2004).
| NOTES |
| 01. |
Jelin, Elizabeth, “Cities, Culture and Globalization,” in World Culture Report. Culture, Creativity and Markets (Paris: UNESCO, 1998), pp105-24. |
| 02. |
McKinley, Terry, “Measuring the Contribution of Culture to Human Well-Being: Cultural Indicators of Development”, in World Culture Report. Culture, Creativity and Markets (Paris: UNESCO, 1998), pp322-32. |
| 03. |
Krätke, Stefan, “Global Media Cities in a Worldwide Urban Network”, European Planning Studies 11 (2003): 605-28. |
| 04. |
This has been the object of the interdisciplinary field of the “Economics of Art” which by now is well established. See monographs in Notes 5 to 10, and the collections of articles in Notes 11 to 15. |
| 05. |
Baumol, William J. and William G. Bowen, Performing Arts—The Economic Dilemma (Cambridge, MA: Twentieth Century Fund, 1966). |
| 06. |
Peacock, Alan T., Paying the Piper. Culture, Music and Money (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993). |
| 07. |
Benhamou, Françoise, L’économie de la culture (Paris: La Découverte, 2000). |
| 08. |
Throsby, David, Economics and Culture (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001). |
| 09. |
Frey, Bruno S. and Werner W. Pommerehne, Muses and Markets: Explorations in the Economics of the Arts (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989). |
| 10. |
Frey, Bruno S., Arts & Economics. Analysis & Cultural Policy, 2nd ed (Berlin, Heidelberg; New York: Springer, 2004). |
| 11. |
Peacock, Alan T. ed., Does the Past have a Future?: The Political Economy of Heritage (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1998). |
| 12. |
Rizzo, Ilde and Ruth Towse, The Political Economy of the Heritage: a Case Study of Sicily (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2002). |
| 13. |
Ginsburgh, Victor A. and David Throsby, eds., Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 2006). |
| 14. |
Towse, Ruth, ed., A Handbook of Cultural Economics (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2003). |
| 15. |
Hutter, Michael and David Throsby, eds., Beyond Price: Value in Culture, Economics and the Arts (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). |
| 16. |
See example in Krätke (Note 3, p 605): “What has mostly been overlooked (in the literature on cities and culture, BSF), however, is the fact that cities are also places where goods and services are produced for a local and supra-regional cultural market”. |
| 17. |
Frey, Bruno S. and Alois Stutzer, Happiness and Economics: How the economy and institutions affect human well-being (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). |
| 18. |
Layard, Richard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (New York: Penguin, 2005). |
| 19. |
Bruni, Luigino and Pier Luigi Porta, eds., Economics & Happiness. Framing the analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). |
| 20. |
Frey, Bruno S., Happiness: A Revolution in Economics (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2008). |
| 21. |
For simplicity, and in line with the literature, the terms “happiness” and “life satisfaction” are used interchangeably in this paper. However, the reference always corresponds to the longer term and deeper feeling of subjective well-being rather than a short-term affect. |
| 22. |
Stutzer, Alois and Bruno S. Frey, “What Happiness Research Can Tell Us about Self-Control and Utility Misprediction”, in Frey, Bruno S. and Alois Stutzer, eds., Economics and Psychology (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2007): pp169-95. |
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