IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jculte/v47y2023i1d10.1007_s10824-021-09437-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Workers’ access to Swedish opera houses and concert halls, 1898–2019

Author

Listed:
  • Staffan Albinsson

    (University of Gothenburg)

Abstract

In this study ticket prices to Swedish opera houses and symphony orchestra concerts are compared to wages during the 1898–2019 period. Both wages and ticket prices have increased continuously. The same kind of policy objectives concerning social inclusion of disadvantaged groups that were established in the beginning of the twentieth century is still proclaimed. The most favourable ticket pricing policies for buyers were used in the decades around the first national Cultural Policy Act from 1974. The study shows that ticket price levels have risen thereafter to a level much less favourable for low-income workers. Managements do use some price discrimination tactics. However, they do it uniformly for all events. They now focus on the promotion of special, ‘popular music’-based events as a response to social inclusion directives. The idea is that attending such performances will make visitors interested in the normal repertoire, as well. The choice of high-level ticket prices for the traditional content means that the standard audience remains monocultural.

Suggested Citation

  • Staffan Albinsson, 2023. "Workers’ access to Swedish opera houses and concert halls, 1898–2019," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 47(1), pages 1-30, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:jculte:v:47:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10824-021-09437-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10824-021-09437-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10824-021-09437-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10824-021-09437-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pascal Courty & Mario Pagliero, 2012. "The Impact of Price Discrimination on Revenue: Evidence from the Concert Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 359-369, February.
    2. E. Woodrow Eckard & Marlene A. Smith, 2012. "The Revenue Gains from Multi‐Tier Ticket Pricing: Evidence from Pop Music Concerts," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(7-8), pages 463-473, October.
    3. Victoria Ateca-Amestoy, 2008. "Determining heterogeneous behavior for theater attendance," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 32(2), pages 127-151, June.
    4. Ericsson, Johan & Molinder, Jakob, 2020. "Economic Growth and the Development of Real Wages: Swedish Construction Workers’ Wages in Comparative Perspective, 1831–1900," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(3), pages 813-852, September.
    5. Junlong Wu & Keshen Jiang & Chaoqing Yuan, 2019. "Determinants of demand for traditional Chinese opera," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(6), pages 2129-2148, December.
    6. Phillip Leslie, 2004. "Price Discrimination in Broadway Theater," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(3), pages 520-541, Autumn.
    7. Staffan Albinsson, 2019. "Sing it out loud! The entrepreneurship of SME opera enterprises in Scandinavia," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 37(4), pages 449-471.
    8. Owen, John D, 1971. "The Demand for Leisure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(1), pages 56-76, Jan.-Feb..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gihwan Yi & Min Kim & Hoe Sang Chung, 2024. "The Revenue Impact of Differential Seat Pricing and Competition in the Movie Theater Market," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 64(3), pages 361-382, May.
    2. Jong-Hee Hahn & Jinwoo Kim & Sang-Hyun Kim & Jihong Lee, 2018. "Price discrimination with loss averse consumers," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(3), pages 681-728, May.
    3. Kevin R. Williams, 2017. "Dynamic Airline Pricing and Seat Availability," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2103, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    4. Siegert, Caspar & Ulbricht, Robert, 2020. "Dynamic oligopoly pricing: Evidence from the airline industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    5. Hendrik Sonnabend, 2016. "Fairness constraints on profit-seeking: evidence from the German club concert industry," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 40(4), pages 529-545, November.
    6. Eckard, E. Woodrow & Smith, Marlene A., 2013. "The impact of price discrimination on consumer surplus at popular music concerts," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 222-224.
    7. Pascal Courty & Luke Davey, 2020. "The Impact of Variable Pricing, Dynamic Pricing, and Sponsored Secondary Markets in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(2), pages 115-138, February.
    8. Övünç Yılmaz & Rob F. Easley & Mark E. Ferguson, 2023. "The future of sports ticketing: Technologies, data, and new strategies," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(3), pages 219-230, June.
    9. Courty, Pascal & Pagliero, Mario, 2012. "The Pricing of Art and the Art of Pricing: Pricing Styles in the Concert Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 8967, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Vlad Radoias, 2017. "When Price Discrimination Fails – A Principal Agent Problem with Social Influence," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 212-221, March.
    11. Andreas Hinterhuber & Sara Viberti, 2023. "Pricing practices of football and basketball clubs in Italy," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(3), pages 201-206, June.
    12. Jesús Manuel De Sancha-Navarro & Juan Lara-Rubio & María Dolores Oliver-Alfonso & Luis Palma-Martos, 2021. "Cultural Sustainability in University Students’ Flamenco Music Event Attendance: A Neural Networks Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-15, March.
    13. Kevin R. Williams, 2017. "The Welfare Effects of Dynamic Pricing: Evidence from Airline Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2103R2, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jun 2021.
    14. Hayri A. Arslan & Necati Tereyağoğlu & Övünç Yılmaz, 2023. "Scoring a Touchdown with Variable Pricing: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in the NFL Ticket Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(8), pages 4435-4456, August.
    15. Michael Rushton, 2011. "Pricing the Arts," Chapters, in: Ruth Towse (ed.), A Handbook of Cultural Economics, Second Edition, chapter 49, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Junlong Wu & Keshen Jiang & Chaoqing Yuan, 2019. "Determinants of demand for traditional Chinese opera," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(6), pages 2129-2148, December.
    17. Kevin R. Williams, 2022. "The Welfare Effects of Dynamic Pricing: Evidence From Airline Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 831-858, March.
    18. Kevin R. Williams, 2017. "Dynamic Airline Pricing and Seat Availability," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2103R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised May 2020.
    19. Julie Holland Mortimer, 2007. "Price Discrimination, Copyright Law, and Technological Innovation: Evidence from the Introduction of DVDs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1307-1350.
    20. Eric Kolhede & J. Tomas Gomez-Arias & Anna Maximova, 2023. "Price elasticity in the performing arts: a segmentation approach," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(3), pages 523-550, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social inclusion; Ticket pricing; Performing arts; Cultural economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: 1913-
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jculte:v:47:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10824-021-09437-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.