Cultural Economics

Our research aims to address the evidence gap by applying two broad classes of valuation techniques – stated preference methods and the wellbeing valuation approach – to the work of two of the UK’s premier cultural institutions, the Natural History Museum (NHM) and Tate Liverpool (TL), and drawing conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of these methodologies as applied to culture.1 It is important to note that our aim here is not to come up with a total value for these institutions as such, but to uncover the value of some of the key non-market services they provide. Moreover, our study is not designed to compare the values derived across the two institutions and hence the values obtained are not comparable. Firstly, the NHM and TL are two very different institutions offering a different array of cultural services and our study focuses ondifferent subsets of these services in each case. Secondly, the valuation methods used for the two institutions are different in many respects. As we will discuss, even within the contingent valuation survey, for example, different scenarios, value elicitation methods and payment vehicles are used, and different samples of the UK population are surveyed.
A comparative analysis of stated preference and wellbeing valuation methods is important for a number of reasons. First, the cultural sector has generally been hesitant towards traditional economic approaches to valuation. There are valid questions about whether monetary values should ever be applied to culture. However, as discussed, the benefit of attaching monetary value to non-market goods, like culture, is that it increases the likelihood that these values will be considered in economic decision-making. Both stated preference and wellbeing valuation are endorsed by HM Treasury’s Green Book on cost-benefit analysis. A detailed comparison of the methods therefore holds out the promise of a more fit-for-purpose approach to economic valuation in the cultural sector that is also recognised by policymakers.
Second, the research is the first comparison of stated preference and wellbeing valuation methods in the cultural sector and amongst the first ever conducted in any sector. It also provides the first monetary valuation estimates of access to and services provided by the NHM and TL.
Finally, the study offers the first comprehensive subjective wellbeing investigation and valuation of NHM and TL visitation using a number of complementary wellbeing approaches.

An airborne LiDAR survey of the Nan Madol World Heritage Site and adjacent Temwen Island revealed a complex, irrigated cultivation system, the first found in the Central and Eastern Caroline Islands. This informs the goals of the sustainable conservation project, funded by the U.S. Department of State Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, that inspired the survey, and expands understanding of Nan Madol and its place in the network of Pacific island interaction and trade. Fieldwork verified the presence, across Temwen, of low, wet, cultivable areas, many of which are connected by water channels or separated by earthen berms. The berms themselves may also have been cultivated. In complexity, labor investment, and organization, the system is comparable to Nan Madol itself, the largest archaeological site in Micronesia, with structures on about 100 artificial islets built of stone and coral on a reef flat. Constructed over a millennium, Nan Madol was the seat of the Saudeleur Dynasty, which persisted from about 1200 to 1600 CE. The cultivation system appears to have been able to provide ample food for consumption, feasting, and redistribution or trade. If the landscape alteration described here proves to date to the time of the Saudeleur Dynasty, it will offer many avenues of research into the economic basis of Nan Madol's regional dominance.