The purpose of this article is to analyse the economic properties as well as the institutions governing the start-up and evolution of cultural districts. The first part of the article reviews the relationships between culture, viewed as an idiosyncratic good, and the theory of industrial districts. The second part comprises a critical discussion of four models of cultural districts: the "industrial cultural district" (mainly based on positive externalities, localized culture and traditions in 'arts and crafts'); the "institutional cultural district" (chiefly relying on the assignment of property rights); the "museums cultural district" (based on network externalities and the search for optimal size); and the "metropolitan cultural district" (based on communication technologies, performing arts and electronic trade). The assignment of intellectual property rights to local idiosyncratic cultural goods seems to be the most significant way to differentiate among cultural districts. The final section discusses a possible convergence of all district models towards the institutional district, based on the creation of a system of property rights as a means to protect localized production. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. ABSTRACT. The aim of the paper is twofold: to carry out a contingent valuation (CV) study of Napoli Musei Aperti, a cultural public good provided by the city of Naples, and to explore some alternative schemes of cultural policy. Revealing individual preferences is a necessary condition for optimal provision of public goods, and of cultural public goods as well. Moreover, assessing the use value and the passive-use values (existence, option and bequest value), tacitly comprehended by the willingness to pay for cultural public goods, provides a basic information as far as the regulatory policy issues of the cultural sector are concerned. As far as the economic evaluation of cultural public goods is concerned, only a few empirical CV studies can be mentioned. Willis (1994) quantified the user value for the Durham Cathedral; Martin (1994) valued the " Musée de la civilisation" in Quebec; Bille Hansen (1995) measured the total value of The Royal Theatre in Copenhagen; Scarpa et. al. (1998) estimated access value to the Contemporary Art Museum of the Castello di Rivoli (Turin); Whitehead , Chambers, and Chambers (1998) investigated the preservation value of an historic building located in St.Genevieve, Missouri. Frey (1997) provided a critical appraisal of CV in this area. This paper presents some results of a CV study aimed to measure holistically the total benefits accruing to the local resident from maintaining the provision of Napoli Musei Aperti, a cultural public good provided in Naples. The present application combines and extends in several ways the previous CV studies carried out in the field. The distinctive features of our CV study are retraceable in the ways we set up the scenario, executed the survey, analyzed the data set, and derived policy implications for the cultural sector. Terms of use: Documents inOur contingent valuation WTP estimates appear to have a reasonable size. The econometric analysis shows the usefulness of spike models when in the sample there is a large proportion of corner solutions (zero bidders); our findings also indicate that conventional logit analysis, based on the ignorance of the payment principle answers, provides a good approximation to the more complete spike model. As the effect of question formats on values is concerned, we obtained, as have others, a significant difference between discrete and continuous WTP estimates, with discrete format yielding a WTP larger than the open-ended format.The second part of the pap...

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