This book provides a comprehensive overview of the emerging field of cultural finance. It summarizes research results of cultural differences in financial decision making and financial markets. Many of the results have been published in leading academic journals over the last ten years but some are presented here for the first time. The book is based on an international survey on risk and time preferences — the INTRA study, conducted in 53 countries worldwide. Applications to financial markets include the equity premium puzzle, the value premium, dividend payout policies and asset allocations.

The world of finance is again undergoing crisis and transformation. This book provides a new perspective on finance through the prism of popular and formal culture and examines fascination and repulsion toward money, the role of governments and individuals in financial crises and how the Crisis of 2008, like others since 1720, repeat the same patterns of enthusiasm, greed, culpability, revulsion, reform and recovery. The book explores the political and socio-economic factors which determine fallibility and resilience in financial cultures, periods of crisis, transition and recovery based on cyclical rather than linear progression. Examining the roots of financial capitalism, in Europe and the United States and its corollary development in Asia, Russia and emerging markets proves that cultural and psychosocial reactions to financial success, endeavor and calamity transcend specific periods or events. The book allows the reader to discover parallel and intersecting reactions, controversies and resolutions in the cultural history of financial markets and institutions.

The book discusses how culture simultaneously shapes and is shaped by the economy. Over the past few years, as the world has staggered from one financial crisis to another, the neat separation of economics and culture has been consistently challenged. To understand the current state of affairs, it has become increasingly necessary to understand the conjuncture that rules the production of value in economic systems, how money shapes social relations and affects discursive practices. By discussing the vocabulary, by understanding the rhetoric and interpreting the narratives, be it of crisis, austerity, growth, welfare, neo-liberalism or socialism, new modes of imaging the economic system may be made possible. The book is structured in four chapters dealing with theory and conjuncture (“Philosophies of Money”), with the visual arts and investment (“The Arts and Finance”), with literary representation and narrativity (“Literature and Money Matters”) and with the cognitive impact of fiduciary representation (“Cognitive Moneyscapes”). This collection analyses the process whereby a material icon invested with the symbolical power to rule social exchange becomes an explanatory narrative determining the way societies produce meaning.

'Ruth Towse is to be congratulated on assembling such a high quality range of writers on cultural economics and on orchestrating their contributions so expertly. From anthropology and auctions through copyright and superstars to visual arts and welfare economics, scholars and general readers alike will discover in this Handbook an absorbing compendium of entries covering the main themes of a fascinating sub-discipline.' - Martin Ricketts, University of Buckingham, UK 'The best collection on cultural economics, definitive. An invaluable, original, and important addition to the field. Ruth Towse is the perfect person to put such a book together. Unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon.' - Tyler Cowen, George Mason University, Mercatus Center and James Buchanan Center for Political Economy, US A Handbook of Cultural Economics includes over 60 eminently readable and concise articles by 50 expert contributors. This unique Handbook is both highly informative and readable; it covers a wide area of cultural economics and its closely related subjects. While being accessible to any reader with a basic knowledge of economics, it presents a comprehensive study at the fore-front of the field. Of the many subjects discussed, chapters include: Art (including auctions, markets, prices, anthropology), artists' labour markets, arts management and corporate sponsorship, globalization, the internet, media economics, museums, non-profit organisations, opera, performance indicators, performing arts, publishing, regulation, tax expenditures, value of culture and welfare economics.

Drawing on a wide range of case studies, Cultures of Financialization argues that, in our age of crisis, the global economy is more invested than ever in culture and the imagination. We must take the idea of 'fictitious capital' seriously as a way to understand the power of finance, and what might be done to stop it.

This book analyses the economic and financial profiles of heritage assets as tourist attractions. Offering both theoretical insights, methods, and global empirical examples, it considers how heritage assets can create economic and social value for a region. It offers an analysis of micro- and macroeconomic characteristics of heritage assets and their financial management. The importance of innovation in light of technological and market transformations is considered, as well as the sustainable management of heritage assets environmentally and in terms of sustainable tourism. The book delves into the financial assessment of heritage assets with a focus on evaluation models, the technique of project financing and wealth management in the art sector. These topics are illustrated with cases studies of heritage assets managed as tourist attractions to outline successful management strategies. The book draws on examples from a range of sites and locations across Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States to show how heritage assets can be an economic stimulus for the development of local economies. The book will be of interest to academics and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the fields of tourism economics, cultural studies and environmental studies.

Cross-cultural specialist Mary Lederleitner brings missiological and financial expertise to explain how global mission efforts can be funded with integrity, mutuality and transparency. Bringing together social science research, biblical principles and on-the-ground examples, she presents best practices for handling funding and finance.