Here is a good NYT article, and here is my favorite part:
“This is all redistributing people’s expenditures from one activity to another,” said David Galenson, an economist at the University of Chicago who focuses on the arts.
Tyler
Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University and the
author of “Good and Plenty: The Creative Successes of American Arts
Funding,” said there was little solid research measuring the economic
impact of arts centers on a city, although there was for sports
stadiums. Such research shows no benefit for a city’s growth, he said,
adding that he was skeptical about economic claims for new concert
halls.“The glorious tales are typically exaggerations,” said
Mr. Cowen, who also contributes a monthly economics column to The New
York Times.
I don’t know about concert halls,
but local anecdotal evidence in the
Shenandoah Valley suggests that the
building of the Blackfriars Theater
in Staunton, VA, the first such
replica in the world of the original
indoor theater to show Shakespeare’s
plays, has had a definitely stimulating
effect on the city’s economy.
In a study I did for the C.D. Howe Institute a few years ago, I found that real estate values in Stratford, Ontario, and in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, both of which host summer-long major theatre festivals, were much higher than in nearby comparable communities. Here’s a link to the study:
http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/commentary_161.pdf
Wealthy people are eager to donate money for the construction of concert halls. No one’s going to donate money for sports stadiums (excluding quid pro quo deals like the sale of naming rights).
New concert Halls will probably bring in more people, just because of
the new concert hall being a new attraction. Also it may not
neccesarily attract more people than normal if the concert hall is
located in a large city or heavily populated area who are fans of the
groups that are participating in the new concert hall. At first everyone
will want to come to it, just to see what it looks like probably.
Art is always under funded so… my opinion is that anything that related to art is worth it… We need to “invest” more in our spiritual side or we might end up one day asking ourselves:”what is the difference between me and that robot?” video production New York
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