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Conference on "Economists and Art, Historically Considered" 
 
CALL FOR PAPERS 
 
On April 3, 4 and 5, 1998 a small conference will take place under 
this rubric, sponsored by the Duke Departments of Economics and Art 
and Art History.  The conference will be held at the Thomas Center, 
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. 
 
     For many years economists have wrestled with how art should be 
     considered from an economic point of view.  What is the nature of 
     the art market?  Are there important externalities?  Is art a 
     public good?  What, if any, public funding is appropriate?   What 
     sort of product is involved?  Are standard tools of analysis 
     adequate to deal with the very fine differentiation of product in 
     art markets or, in the case of old master paintings, for exmaple, 
     with true uniqueness? Up to this point, there has been only 
     sporadic attention paid to what economists have said about art.  
     We know that Ricardo sidestepped analyzing the market for fine 
     old books because, he said, they were not readily reproducible.  
     Marshall called old masters an exception to the theory of 
     temporary equilibrium pricing because at auction the same or 
     similar paintings could fetch quite different prices in 
     successive sales. But many other economists have had active 
     mental and practical involvements with art and the arts.  Adam 
     Smith, long before Walter Benjamin, devoted an essy to 
     replicability and value in the imitative arts.  Keynes, often 
     along with his artist friend Roger Fry, was engaged repeatedly in 
     various attempts to secure arrangements for the production of 
     works of art, cooperatives mostly, but run by professionals so as 
     to free the artist-producers from the pressures of the market and 
     worries about their next meal.  Art figures prominently in the 
     thinking of the American Institutionalists, for instance that of 
     Clarence Ayres.  Ruskin and Morris wrote about economics from the 
     perspective of art, in some sense harking back to the aesthetic 
     dimension in moral philosophy that has since been lost from 
     political economy.  Aesthetic and market valuation are now 
     typically seen as opposed and irreconcilable; yet successful 
     artists, and dealers, have always found ways to bring apparently 
     competing claims together. 
 
     We invite proposals from economists, historians of economic 
     thought, art historians and others, which promise to recover and 
     place in perspective a range of the engagements between those in 
     the two spheres, art and economics.  Listed below are a few 
     topics that we know have been touched upon by economists, artists 
     or art theorists.  We would like to revisit at least some of 
     these engagements in depth.  Proposals will be especially 
     welcomed that involve cross-disciplinary collaboration.  All 
     proposals, however, should have a strong historical cast. 
 
     This list is not meant to impose bounds, but is merely 
     suggestive. 
 
1.  The industrial organization of art. 
     --  what motivates artists to produce?  Is artistic creation 
     analogous to invention and innovation?  Are entrepreneurs artists 
     manque, or the reverse? --  what determines the demand for art?  
     Is utility maximization a useful device here? --  has market 
     competition been perceived as a salutary force in art? --  what 
     are the main imperfections on the demand and the supply sides? -- 
      is there a "right" sort of firm for art production? --  what 
     experiments have been tried in the past, and with what economic 
     content: producers cooperatives?  National Endowments?  Arts 
     Councils? 
 
2.  Art and civilization/art and social accomplishment. 
     --  are there identifiable links between art and civilization, 
     and what is the measure of the contribution of art?  Is art 
     "appreciation" a better yardstick than product, for assessing the 
     "good" society? --  does the periodic urge to reach for a 
     "scientific" aesthetics have anything to teach us about the 
     quality probem in art? --  what responsibility does the state 
     have in constraining degeneration of the national patrimony in 
     art? 
 
3.  Art and ideology. 
     --  art has been inextricably linked with power structures, 
     ideology, patronage of various sorts, and even capitalism and 
     empire.  What manifestations have there been of these 
     interconnections, and how have they shaped economic 
     rationalizations, where these have been thought necessary? --  in 
     what forms has art been co-opted to reinforce state ideals and/or 
     national identity? 
 
4.  The economics of (near-)unique objects. 
     --  auctions have been developed to cope with this feature of 
     art, but aside from auctions, what has been the history of 
     thinking about the near-unique object within economics? -- what 
     does the presence of such objects, and the existence of 
     well-known anomalies 
challenging the law of one price, do to the notion of "law" in 
economics? 
     --  economists, historically, have often evinced discomfort with 
     "fashion", changeableness, the apparent non-constancy of prices 
     in the world of art/fashion objects.  In what ways does art 
     challenge standard and deeply held convictions within economics 
     about competition, regularity, arbitrage, etc? 
 
5.  Art, luxury and the morality of consuming non-necessaries. 
     --  has art suffered at the hands of economists because it seemed 
     a diversion of resources away from "productive" ends and 
     "essential" consumption? --  what ways have been found around the 
     "problem of luxury"?  Are there other examples, comparable to the 
     invention of the category "magnificence" by the medieval church 
     to justify spending  on religious art? 
 
6.  Legal issues stemming from uniqueness, reproducibility and 
copyright 
     --  the history of rights to images: privileges. droit de suite, 
     etc. --  the business of art fraud, from an economic-theoretical 
     perspective. 
 
7.  Interactions between economists and artists. 
     -- are there interesting parallels between art theoretical 
     assessment of quality/worth and economic thought about value? -- 
     on a personal level, are there many examples of fruitful 
     interaction between representatives of art and economics, 
     comparable perhaps to some which have existed between surveyors 
     and perspective artists, or between mathematicians and artists, 
     or between art theorists and economists? -- why did economists at 
     times find themselves heavily involved in art maters (Keynes, for 
     one)?  Why have some artists felt angry about economics (Ruskin)? 
 
     A selection of papers from the conference will be published in 
     the 1999 special issue of  History of Political Economy. 
 
Proposals should be a one-page outline, and should be sent to  
both Craufurd Goodwin ([log in to unmask]) and Neil De Marchi  
([log in to unmask]).   
 
Craufurd D. Goodwin             Telephone:  919-684-3936 
Department of Economics         Fax:        919-681-7869 
Duke University                 E-mail:     [log in to unmask] 
P.O. Box 90097 
Durham NC 27708-0097 
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