Dynamic Model of Arts Labor Supply

Popovic, Milenko (2009): Dynamic Model of Arts Labor Supply.

Abstract

In this paper two dynamic models of artist behavior and arts labor supply are developed. Both are based on household production function approach and on the assumption that artists are multiple-job-holders. In the first model proposed here artist is depicted as someone who is hired on the arts labor market and paid for her arts time. In the second model artist is described as someone who sell her products, like paintings for instance, on the market for arts products. In order to make these models dynamic, artist productivity is here supposed to be a function of accumulated human capital of artist. Following the results of existing empirical research, previous experience and previous artistic practice are supposed to be the most important form of human capital accumulation. Once analysis is expended to capture this kind of artist human capital accumulation, the supply of the labor in the arts market appears as a resulting from an inter-temporal process of resources allocation. Both models end with same result: shadow price of producing unit of art commodity in certain year should be equal to the sum of current monetary benefits, current nonmonetary benefits, stream of future monetary benefits, and stream of future nonmonetary benefits generated by production of respected art unit. This result appears to be pretty suitable for formalization of several existing hypotheses aimed at explaining arts labor market peculiarities. Especially, by referring to the stream of expected nonmonetary benefits, models developed here are able to formalize most promising among these hypothesis according to which artist need for self-actualization is driving force in explaining oversupply of arts labor.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: arts; household production function; allocation of time; expected benefits
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J31 - Wage Level and Structure ; Wage Differentials; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J24 - Human Capital ; Skills ; Occupational Choice ; Labor Productivity; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z11 - Economics of the Arts and Literature

References

Abbing, H. (2004). About Subsidies Income and Numbers of Artists, Paper presented at 13th ACEI conference in Chicago, June, p. 24.

Adler, M. (1985). Stardom and Talent, American Economic Review, Vol. 75, pp. 208-212.

Adler, M. (2006). Stardom and Talent, in: Ginsburgh, V. and Throsby, D. (Eds), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, Elsevier, Amsterdam.

Alper, N.O. and Wassall, G.H. (2006). Artists’ Career and their Labor Markets, in Ginsburgh, V. and Throsby, D. (Eds), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, Elsevier, Amsterdam.

Becker, G.S. (1965). A Theory of the Allocation of Time, Economic Journal, Vol. 75, No. 299, pp. 493-517.

Becker, G.S. (1975). A Theory of the Allocation of Time and Goods over the Life Cycle, NBER, p. 45.

Becker, G.S. (1991). A Treatise on the Family, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Becker, G.S. (1993). The Economic Way of Looking at Life, John M. Olin Law & Economic Working Paper No. 12 (2nd Series), p. 25.

Becker, G.S., Grossman, M. and Murphy, K.M. (1991). Rational Addiction and the Effect of Price on Consumption, The American Economic Review, Vol. 81, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred and third Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, pp. 237-241.

Bryant, W.D.A. and Throsby, C.D. (2006). Creativity and the Behavior of Artists, in Ginsburgh, V. and Throsby, D. (Eds), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 508-529.

Caserta, M. and Cuccia, T. (2001). The Supply of Arts Labor: Towards a Dynamic Approach, Journal of Cultural Economics 25: 185-201.

Jeffri, J. (1991). The Artists Training and Career Project: Painters, Research Center for Arts and Culture, Columbia University, New York.

Galor, O. and Weil, N. W. (1993). The Gender Gap, Fertility and Growth, NBER Working Papers Series,Working Paper No 4550, p. 30.

Grossman, M. (1971). The Economics of Joint Production in the Household, Report 7145, Center Math. Stud. Bus. Econ., University of Chicago, p. 62.

Heilbrun, J. and Gray, C.M. (2004). The Economics of Art and Culture (2nd edition), Cambridge University Press, p. 410.

Krusell, P., Ohanian, L. E., Rios-Rull, J. V., Violente, G. L. (1997). Capital-Skill Complementarity and Inequality: A Macroeconomic Analysis, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Research Department Staff Report, No 236, p. 67.

Menger, P. (2006). Artistic Labor Markets: Contingent Work, Excess Supply, and Occupational Risk Management, in Ginsburgh, V. and Throsby, D. (Eds), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 766-811.

Menger, P. (2002). Are there to many artists? The “excess supply” issue: a measurement puzzle, an increasingly flexibility driven functional requirement and an unavoidable mismatch effect in creative activities, International Symposium on Culture Statistics, Montreal, p. 25.

Michael, R.T. and Becker, G.S. (1973). On the New Theory of Consumer Behavior, Swedish Journal of Economics, No. 75, pp. 378-396.

Rengers, M. and Madden, C. (2000). Living Art: Artists between Making Art and Making the Living, Australian Bulletin of Labor, 26 (4), pp. 325-354.

Rosen, S. (1981). The Economics of Superstars, American Economic Review, Vol. 71, pp. 845-858.

Rosen, S. (1986). The Theory of Equalizing Differences. In: Ashenfelter, O. and Layard, R. (Eds) Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume I, Elsevier Science Publishers BV, pp. 641-692.

Santos, F.P. (1976). Risk, Uncertainty, and the Performing Artist, in Blaug, M. (Eds): The Economics of the Arts, Westview Press, Boulder, Co.

Stigler, G.J. and Becker, G.S. (1977). De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum, The American Economic Review, Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 76-90.

Throsby, D. (1992). Artists as a Workers, in Towse, R. and Khakee, A. (Eds), Cultural Economics, Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag, pp. 201-208.

Thorsby, D. (1994). A Work-Preference Model of Artist Behavior, in Peacock, A. and Rizzo, I. (eds.) Cultural Economics and Cultural Policies, Kluwer Academics Publishers, Dordrecht.

Throsby, D. (1994a). The Production and Consumption of the Arts: A View of Cultural Economics, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXII, pp. 1-29.

Throsby, D. (2007). Preferred Work Patterns of Creative Artists, Journal of Economics and Finance, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 395-402.

Towse, R. (2006). Human Capital and Artists’ Labor Market, in Ginsburgh, V. and Throsby, D. (Eds), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 866-894.