Agglomeration economies in classical music

Abstract

This study investigates agglomeration effects for classical music production in a wide range of cities for a global sample of composers born between 1750 and 1899. Theory suggests a trade-off between agglomeration economies (peer effects) and diseconomies (peer crowding). I test this hypothesis using historical data on composers and employ a unique instrumental variable -a measure of birth centrality, calculated as the average distance between a composer's birthplace and the birthplace of his peers. I find a strong causal impact of peer group size on the number of important compositions written in a given year. Consistent with theory, the productivity gain eventually decreases and is characterized by an inverted U-shaped relationship. These results are robust to a large series of tests, including checks for quality of peers, city characteristics, various measures of composers' productivity, and across different estimations in which also time-varying birth centrality measures are used as instrumental variables.JEL classification: D24, J24, N90, R12, Z11

Agglomeration of Knowledge: A Regional Economic Analysis for the German Economy

“…Being close to peers, workers can become more productive (Lucas 1988). This view is supported by a recent contribution by Borowiecki (2013) who finds that classical composers benefitted from the clustering and quality of their peers. Their productivity in terms of written works per years significantly increased when other classical composers of high quality were close.…”

Cost efficiency and financial situation of local governments in the Canary Isles during the recession

“…There are various reasons for wishing to determine overall efficiency rather than that of specific public services (Borge et al, 2008;Bosch, 2012;Pérez-López et al, 2015). On the one hand, as observed by Giménez and Prior (2007), municipalities provide multiple and varied public services, with the common objective of satisfying the needs of local citizens, and therefore it is appropriate to consider the efficiency of these public services as a whole.…”

“…Among other causes, this situation of scarce resources has arisen from falling public administration revenues, the increased competences acquired in recent years (Balaguer-Coll, 2004), greater demand for public services and the enactment of legislation 1 strengthening economicfinancial control over local entities (as indicated in the preamble to Act 27/2013, of 27 December, on the Rationalisation and Sustainability of Local Administration). This background, and the fact that municipal government is the level of public administration that is closest to the citizen, underlies academic interest in analysing municipal management performance (Zafra-Gómez & Muñiz, 2010) and thus in evaluating the factors that determine efficiency (Bosch et al, 2012), especially those related to sources of funding.…”

In fatal pursuit of immortal fame: Peer competition and early mortality of music composers

“…Hellmanzik (2010), for example, argues that the quality of output of artists who worked mainly in highly concentrated locations, such as Paris, peaked earlier in their career. Borowiecki (2013) demonstrates that music composers located in geographic clusters were more productive due to interactions with peers; clustering benefits which, however, decrease with very large peer group sizes where competition for access to limited production facilities is particularly high (Borowiecki, 2015).…”

“…They were not the exception to the rule though, as they were exposed to particularly intense competition with peers for access to limited production facilities within a city. For example, by the beginning of the 19th century, most European and North American cities had a single concert hall with a domicile symphonic orchestra and a single opera house with a local opera company (Borowiecki, 2015). Even very large cities usually did not have more than one concert hall or opera house; hence only one composer at a time could have his works rehearsed and performed at those facilities.…”