Plus ça change. Another decade in cultural economics

The author illustrates issues of where the culture economics has been and where it is going. The first is that of value and valuation. It is now widely accepted that the value of cultural goods and services can be specified only considering economic and cultural values jointly. The second is the impacts of technological changes. The emergence of new platforms for distribution of cultural product has meant a re-structuring of artistic and cultural production and a re-alignment of the cultural industries within the economy. These developments have further focussed the interest of public policy makers on the economic potential of the creative economy. The final one concerns the changing relationship between cultural economics and cultural policy appearing now closer together. In the year 2007, to mark the twentyfirst anniversary of the founding of the Associazione per l’Economia della Cultura, the author contributed with a paper on the major surveys of the field in the literature at that time. Re-reading the paper fifteen years later he observes how much of what he wrote about then is still relevant today and he wonders whether this is a case of plus ça change...