The art market represents a sector of economic activity that is highly entrepreneurial and comprised of many small businesses and individuals. Since the bulk of production and sales takes place through these micro-enterprises, there are numerous problems present for the researcher seeking to measure it. Unlike the nonprofit sector of the visual arts, the for-profit art market mostly has no public reporting requirements. The art market's activity remains largely opaque as it is difficult to gather an accurate field representation or total measurements from such a large number of small enterprises. This paper represents the first stage in the development of new tools for the measuring of the art market by making use of US government data derived from tax and labor statistics, and by measuring the Colorado art market for the year 2017. The data in this paper is used to illustrate the connection between arts and entrepreneurship and how this sector serves to support the wider Colorado economy. It also establishes the methodology for measuring the entire US art market for the year 2018. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Research: Art Works grant will fund the report and release it in early 2020.
The art market is a sector of the economy that holds great significance in terms of composition and economic impact. Information pertaining to the for profits of the market is often difficult to obtain, leading to a lack of research in the field. A Colorado based report explored the for profit arts of the state using EMSI data to overcome for profits lack of transparency. This report presented the art market of Colorado as having a major economic impact and served as a foundation for further case studies of the art economy within the nation. Additionally, though diversity in markets generally corresponds with economic success, the racial demographics within the art market as a whole show the market to be predominantly white. This paper consists of four sections specialized to answer the question, “To what extent does the makeup of the art economy of Erie, Pennsylvania correspond with regional success?”. First, I review the current literature regarding arts and their relationship with economics. The second section is developing a multi-pronged replicable methodology geared towards city level analysis that corresponds the makeup of a market to its economic impact. The third section analyzes the findings the methodology provides, and the final section explores the implications this study has in regards to the city investigated and others in the field of art economics moving forward.
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