<p> This dissertation is an ethnography of human-soil relations that examines the cultural, scientific, political-economic, and ethical stakes of alternative agricultural practices and life processes that resist military-led, growth-oriented development. Moving across laboratories, greenhouses, forests and farms, it weaves together a symmetrical analysis of two kinds of local-practitioners&mdash;soil scientists in the capital city of Bogot&aacute; and small farmers in the southwestern frontier department of Putumayo&mdash;to track how soils emerge with political importance in the construction of what I call agro-life proposals for peace in the Colombian Amazon. Theoretically, it interrogates concepts of "sustainability" emerging among scientists and farmers, suggesting they imply a complex reframing of liberal notions of property, health, wellbeing, labor and autonomy. These observations reimagine the interface between political economy and ecology and science and technology studies that can account for new ecological notions of territoriality linked to practices of economic 'degrowth', and the alternative agricultural life-worlds I encountered in southwestern Colombia.</p>

I estimate the total economic value to Mississippians of restoring and re-using the Alcazar Hotel in Clarksdale, MS using a combined travel cost, contingent behavior, and contingent valuation method based on Eom and Larson's (2006) combined travel cost and contingent valuation method. I find that Mississippians hold a positive average total value of about $23 per person over a three-year visitation period. Using Eom and Larson's (2006) framework, I am able to calculate the use and non-use value of restoration in a theoretically consistent manner and find that the majority of the total value of restoration is non-use value. This finding suggests that the use of non-market valuation methods that require the researcher to assume away non-use value is inappropriate when valuing culturally and historically significant sites.

Creative arts can make vital contributions to both economies and communities. Moreover, these impacts can be keenly felt by smaller, regional communities, where shifts away from traditional rural industries are apparent, and in the context of the Inew economy' which emphasises the importance of knowledge industries and creative industries. This research investigates creative arts supply and demand in regional Victoria, Australia through the collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data in three target communities. Fundamentally, this thesis presents a detailed analysis of the current supply and demand environment, including the impacts of regional arts festivals, and determines the conditions, events and characteristics which could strengthen regional Victorian supply and demand of creative arts. This thesis analyses focus group data to investigate current levels of supply of creative arts in regional Victoria. Qualitative analysis of the data shows that the supply of creative arts in the target areas is limited by scarce resources, isolation, negative community attitudes towards creative arts, and a small audience or sales market and an over-reliance on volunteers. Small and micro-businesses in the regional Victorian arts sector are seen as having motivations for operating beyond making money, limited business acumen, and have difficulty in marketing themselves effectively. Best-practice strategies to strengthen the operations of small and micro-businesses include adopting a more entrepreneurial attitude towards arts business, using an agent to source new audiences or sales markets and to maximise the promotion of their product, creating art which is accessible to the local community, and to engage in skills development and business training. Using attitudes towards creative arts, participation in creative arts and expenditure on creative arts as a measure of current demand levels, this thesis applies a range of statistical and econometric tests to the data collected from the three target communities. Contrary to the view emergent from the supply data, this thesis shows that regional Victorians have strong levels of demand for creative arts. Results show higher than average levels of overall monthly arts expenditure, and strong demand for cinema, craft fairs or exhibitions, books, CDs and other music formats. Low levels of demand were noted for classical music, opera or ballet. Chi-Squared analysis and ordered probit results show that gender, age, festival attendance, education, and individual levels of overall arts expenditure are all determinants of creative arts demand. Analysis regarding impacts and key aspects of two regional arts festivals found that regional festival patrons are more likely to be female, local to the host region, have a middle income, and hold a high school or equivalent qualification. An econometric model, including two versions of an Ordinary Least Squares regression in addition to Tobit and probit estimations, was used to more accurately estimate individual expenditure characteristics, notably accounting for the zero-expenditure of attendees who are local to the host region. This thesis provides valuable contributions to knowledge regarding the supply and demand of creative arts in regional areas. It also provides practical insights for policy makers, festival organisers, and the regional arts industry.

Esta tese é composta por três ensaios relacionados à educação e cultura. O primeiro deles mensura o impacto do capital cultural do professor, medido através da frequência a atividades culturais, sobre o aprendizado em língua portuguesa e matemática dos alunos do 5º ano do ensino fundamental de escolas brasileiras. Para estabelecer uma relação causal, instrumentaliza-se o capital cultural dos professores pela oferta de atividades culturais do município. Os resultados encontrados indicam que o capital cultural dos professores tem efeito positivo apenas para o aprendizado das crianças em língua portuguesa. Quando adiciona-se controle de qualidade educacional da escola em uma amostra restrita às escolas públicas brasileiras, o coeficiente de interesse continua significativo, porém com menor magnitude. Os mecanismos encontrados para os resultados são que professores com maior capital cultural incentivam de alguma forma as crianças a consumirem bens e serviços culturais, além de utilizar mais, em sala de aula, livros de leitura em geral. O segundo ensaio visa avaliar a política de meia entrada para estudantes no consumo de bens e serviços culturais no Brasil. A metodologia empregada explora as diferentes datas de criação das leis da meia entrada entre os estados brasileiros utilizando os modelos de Diferenças-em-Diferenças (DD) e Diferenças Triplas (DDD). Os resultados encontrados no presente trabalho sugerem que a criação da lei da meia entrada teve efeitos positivos tanto em termos de aumento na probabilidade dos estudantes consumirem bens e serviços culturais como em elevar seus gastos com esse tipo de bem. Por fim, o terceiro ensaio avalia se qualificações dos docentes têm efeitos nos impactos das características da turma sobre o aprendizado escolar individual. Foram consideradas como características da turma medidas de composição relacionadas à raça, nível socioeconômico e educação familiar. A metodologia empregada no presente trabalho controla para características observadas dos alunos e dos professores, além de características não observadas de escolas, através do método de efeitos fixos. Os resultados, em geral, apontam que efeito da qualidade do professor na nota dos alunos em exames de proficiência, via características das turmas, sempre é maior em turmas cujo aluno, em função de sua cor, não é uma minoria e onde a proporção de alunos com pais analfabetos é menor. A única exceção é quando analisa-se, para as notas de alunos negros, a variável “Capital cultural do professor” e a característica da turma “Proporção de alunos negros”. Nesse caso, a presença do professor com maior capital cultural na turma resulta em um acréscimo maior das notas de alunos negros em turmas onde o negro é uma minoria do que em turmas onde ele é uma maioria. / This thesis consists of three essays related to education and culture. The first one measures the impact of cultural capital of teachers, measured by the frequency of cultural activities, on portuguese and mathematics learning in 5th grade students. We use the city provision of cultural activities as instruments for teachers’ cultural capital to establish a causal relationship . The results indicate teachers’ cultural capital has a positive effect only for children’s portuguese learning. When we add control of education quality of schools in a sample for Brazilian public schools, the coefficient of interest remains significant, but lower. We found two mechanisms for these findings. First, teachers with high cultural capital levels encourage children to demand cultural goods and services. Second, teachers with high cultural capital levels encourage children to read books inside the classroom. In the second essay, we estimate the effects of the law of half price tickets on the consumption of cultural goods and services of Brazilian students using samples collected for all metropolitan regions from the Household Budget Surveys (HBS), carried out in 1987/88, 1995 / 96, 2002/03 and 2008/09. We evaluate the effects of the law on the proportion of students that consume cultural goods and changes in their expenses with those goods. We explore the time differences of the creation of those laws among Brazilian states to estimate a causal relationship using the Difference-in-differences (DD) and Triple differences (DDD) methodology. We found that the creation of law of half price tickets had positive effects on increasing the students likelihood to consume cultural goods and services and on raising their spending with those goods. Finally, the third essay evaluates whether teachers’ qualifications have effects on the impact of classroom characteristics on individual scholar achievement. We considered as classroom characteristics measures related to race, socioeconomic status and family education. The methodology used in this study controls for observed characteristics of students and teachers, as well as unobserved characteristics of schools using the fixed effects model. The results indicate that the effect of teacher quality on students proficiency examinations, through characteristics of classroom, is always higher on classroom which students, depending on their color, are not a minority and where the proportion of students with illiterate parents is lower. The only exception is when we analyze, for achievements of black students, the variable "Cultural capital of the teacher" and the classroom characteristic "Proportion of black students." In this case, the presence of the teacher with higher cultural capital level in classrooms generates greater increase for black students in classes where the black is minority than in classes where they are majority.

Esta tese é composta por três ensaios relacionados à educação e cultura. O primeiro deles mensura o impacto do capital cultural do professor, medido através da frequência a atividades culturais, sobre o aprendizado em língua portuguesa e matemática dos alunos do 5º ano do ensino fundamental de escolas brasileiras. Para estabelecer uma relação causal, instrumentaliza-se o capital cultural dos professores pela oferta de atividades culturais do município. Os resultados encontrados indicam que o capital cultural dos professores tem efeito positivo apenas para o aprendizado das crianças em língua portuguesa. Quando adiciona-se controle de qualidade educacional da escola em uma amostra restrita às escolas públicas brasileiras, o coeficiente de interesse continua significativo, porém com menor magnitude. Os mecanismos encontrados para os resultados são que professores com maior capital cultural incentivam de alguma forma as crianças a consumirem bens e serviços culturais, além de utilizar mais, em sala de aula, livros de leitura em geral. O segundo ensaio visa avaliar a política de meia entrada para estudantes no consumo de bens e serviços culturais no Brasil. A metodologia empregada explora as diferentes datas de criação das leis da meia entrada entre os estados brasileiros utilizando os modelos de Diferenças-em-Diferenças (DD) e Diferenças Triplas (DDD). Os resultados encontrados no presente trabalho sugerem que a criação da lei da meia entrada teve efeitos positivos tanto em termos de aumento na probabilidade dos estudantes consumirem bens e serviços culturais como em elevar seus gastos com esse tipo de bem. Por fim, o terceiro ensaio avalia se qualificações dos docentes têm efeitos nos impactos das características da turma sobre o aprendizado escolar individual. Foram consideradas como características da turma medidas de composição relacionadas à raça, nível socioeconômico e educação familiar. A metodologia empregada no presente trabalho controla para características observadas dos alunos e dos professores, além de características não observadas de escolas, através do método de efeitos fixos. Os resultados, em geral, apontam que efeito da qualidade do professor na nota dos alunos em exames de proficiência, via características das turmas, sempre é maior em turmas cujo aluno, em função de sua cor, não é uma minoria e onde a proporção de alunos com pais analfabetos é menor. A única exceção é quando analisa-se, para as notas de alunos negros, a variável “Capital cultural do professor” e a característica da turma “Proporção de alunos negros”. Nesse caso, a presença do professor com maior capital cultural na turma resulta em um acréscimo maior das notas de alunos negros em turmas onde o negro é uma minoria do que em turmas onde ele é uma maioria. / This thesis consists of three essays related to education and culture. The first one measures the impact of cultural capital of teachers, measured by the frequency of cultural activities, on portuguese and mathematics learning in 5th grade students. We use the city provision of cultural activities as instruments for teachers’ cultural capital to establish a causal relationship . The results indicate teachers’ cultural capital has a positive effect only for children’s portuguese learning. When we add control of education quality of schools in a sample for Brazilian public schools, the coefficient of interest remains significant, but lower. We found two mechanisms for these findings. First, teachers with high cultural capital levels encourage children to demand cultural goods and services. Second, teachers with high cultural capital levels encourage children to read books inside the classroom. In the second essay, we estimate the effects of the law of half price tickets on the consumption of cultural goods and services of Brazilian students using samples collected for all metropolitan regions from the Household Budget Surveys (HBS), carried out in 1987/88, 1995 / 96, 2002/03 and 2008/09. We evaluate the effects of the law on the proportion of students that consume cultural goods and changes in their expenses with those goods. We explore the time differences of the creation of those laws among Brazilian states to estimate a causal relationship using the Difference-in-differences (DD) and Triple differences (DDD) methodology. We found that the creation of law of half price tickets had positive effects on increasing the students likelihood to consume cultural goods and services and on raising their spending with those goods. Finally, the third essay evaluates whether teachers’ qualifications have effects on the impact of classroom characteristics on individual scholar achievement. We considered as classroom characteristics measures related to race, socioeconomic status and family education. The methodology used in this study controls for observed characteristics of students and teachers, as well as unobserved characteristics of schools using the fixed effects model. The results indicate that the effect of teacher quality on students proficiency examinations, through characteristics of classroom, is always higher on classroom which students, depending on their color, are not a minority and where the proportion of students with illiterate parents is lower. The only exception is when we analyze, for achievements of black students, the variable "Cultural capital of the teacher" and the classroom characteristic "Proportion of black students." In this case, the presence of the teacher with higher cultural capital level in classrooms generates greater increase for black students in classes where the black is minority than in classes where they are majority.

Esta tese é composta por três ensaios relacionados à educação e cultura. O primeiro deles mensura o impacto do capital cultural do professor, medido através da frequência a atividades culturais, sobre o aprendizado em língua portuguesa e matemática dos alunos do 5º ano do ensino fundamental de escolas brasileiras. Para estabelecer uma relação causal, instrumentaliza-se o capital cultural dos professores pela oferta de atividades culturais do município. Os resultados encontrados indicam que o capital cultural dos professores tem efeito positivo apenas para o aprendizado das crianças em língua portuguesa. Quando adiciona-se controle de qualidade educacional da escola em uma amostra restrita às escolas públicas brasileiras, o coeficiente de interesse continua significativo, porém com menor magnitude. Os mecanismos encontrados para os resultados são que professores com maior capital cultural incentivam de alguma forma as crianças a consumirem bens e serviços culturais, além de utilizar mais, em sala de aula, livros de leitura em geral. O segundo ensaio visa avaliar a política de meia entrada para estudantes no consumo de bens e serviços culturais no Brasil. A metodologia empregada explora as diferentes datas de criação das leis da meia entrada entre os estados brasileiros utilizando os modelos de Diferenças-em-Diferenças (DD) e Diferenças Triplas (DDD). Os resultados encontrados no presente trabalho sugerem que a criação da lei da meia entrada teve efeitos positivos tanto em termos de aumento na probabilidade dos estudantes consumirem bens e serviços culturais como em elevar seus gastos com esse tipo de bem. Por fim, o terceiro ensaio avalia se qualificações dos docentes têm efeitos nos impactos das características da turma sobre o aprendizado escolar individual. Foram consideradas como características da turma medidas de composição relacionadas à raça, nível socioeconômico e educação familiar. A metodologia empregada no presente trabalho controla para características observadas dos alunos e dos professores, além de características não observadas de escolas, através do método de efeitos fixos. Os resultados, em geral, apontam que efeito da qualidade do professor na nota dos alunos em exames de proficiência, via características das turmas, sempre é maior em turmas cujo aluno, em função de sua cor, não é uma minoria e onde a proporção de alunos com pais analfabetos é menor. A única exceção é quando analisa-se, para as notas de alunos negros, a variável “Capital cultural do professor” e a característica da turma “Proporção de alunos negros”. Nesse caso, a presença do professor com maior capital cultural na turma resulta em um acréscimo maior das notas de alunos negros em turmas onde o negro é uma minoria do que em turmas onde ele é uma maioria. / This thesis consists of three essays related to education and culture. The first one measures the impact of cultural capital of teachers, measured by the frequency of cultural activities, on portuguese and mathematics learning in 5th grade students. We use the city provision of cultural activities as instruments for teachers’ cultural capital to establish a causal relationship . The results indicate teachers’ cultural capital has a positive effect only for children’s portuguese learning. When we add control of education quality of schools in a sample for Brazilian public schools, the coefficient of interest remains significant, but lower. We found two mechanisms for these findings. First, teachers with high cultural capital levels encourage children to demand cultural goods and services. Second, teachers with high cultural capital levels encourage children to read books inside the classroom. In the second essay, we estimate the effects of the law of half price tickets on the consumption of cultural goods and services of Brazilian students using samples collected for all metropolitan regions from the Household Budget Surveys (HBS), carried out in 1987/88, 1995 / 96, 2002/03 and 2008/09. We evaluate the effects of the law on the proportion of students that consume cultural goods and changes in their expenses with those goods. We explore the time differences of the creation of those laws among Brazilian states to estimate a causal relationship using the Difference-in-differences (DD) and Triple differences (DDD) methodology. We found that the creation of law of half price tickets had positive effects on increasing the students likelihood to consume cultural goods and services and on raising their spending with those goods. Finally, the third essay evaluates whether teachers’ qualifications have effects on the impact of classroom characteristics on individual scholar achievement. We considered as classroom characteristics measures related to race, socioeconomic status and family education. The methodology used in this study controls for observed characteristics of students and teachers, as well as unobserved characteristics of schools using the fixed effects model. The results indicate that the effect of teacher quality on students proficiency examinations, through characteristics of classroom, is always higher on classroom which students, depending on their color, are not a minority and where the proportion of students with illiterate parents is lower. The only exception is when we analyze, for achievements of black students, the variable "Cultural capital of the teacher" and the classroom characteristic "Proportion of black students." In this case, the presence of the teacher with higher cultural capital level in classrooms generates greater increase for black students in classes where the black is minority than in classes where they are majority.

This thesis investigates the effect of individual countries' cultural character- istics on macroeconomic stability. Macroeconomic stability is a general con- cept that comprises the stable development of several economic parameters - inflation, government budget, external debt, gross domestic product, and oth- ers. The mainstream economics investigates these indicators usually as being shaped only by wealth, political stability and institutions. However recently, the economic literature reveals the relationship between some of the individ- ual cultural characteristics - mainly trust - and macroeconomic (in)stability. This thesis is the first attempt to analyze the effect of complex set of cultural characteristics on macroeconomic stability. Through the lens of panel data re- gression it is shown that the macroeconomic stability is significantly affected by cultural characteristics. In particular, more individualistic countries tend to have lower macroeconomic stability. Furthermore, in countries where people feel stronger fear about uncertainty the macroeconomic stability is also weaker. On the contrary from the previous studies, the positive effect of higher trust on macroeconomic stability is not confirmed. JEL Classification C33, E03, Z10, Z19 Keywords Macroeconomic stability, Cultural economics,...

Este trabalho busca mensurar os efeitos do compartilhamento de arquivos na internet sobre o mercado de shows, importante canal de remuneração para músicos. São utilizados dados retirados do Guia da Folha, uma das principais publicações especializadas em cultura na cidade de São Paulo. A especificação principal adota um estimador de diferença em diferenças tendo shows como grupo de tratamento e peças teatrais como grupo de controle. As estimações indicam que a pirataria provocou um choque positivo de oferta, reduzindo os preços de ingressos em até 8,2% e aumentando a quantidade em 14 apresentações por semana. Além disso, a capacidade média foi reduzida, e a diversidade de apresentações e de casas de show aumentou. Esses resultados apontam para a ocorrência de um processo de pulverização do mercado, onde artistas menores fazem shows menores e mais baratos. Artistas muito famosos, entretanto, subiram os preços em torno de 10% e reduziram em até 2,5 o número de apresentações semanais / This dissertation measures the effects of file-sharing on the market for music concerts, an important source of income for most musicians.We use information published by Folha de São Paulo, one of the most popular Brazilian newspapers. The main analysis consists of using a differences-in-differences estimator with music concerts as treatment group and theatrical plays as control group.We find evidence that music piracy had a positive effect on the supply of concerts with an up to 8.2% reduction of ticket prices and an increase of 14 weekly performances.We also find a decrease in the mean capacity of venues; an significant increase in the variety of music venues and of unique musicians performing. These results indicate an increasingly competitive market with less popular musicians performing at lower prices for smaller audiences. Famous musicians however have risen ticket prices up to 10% and reduced their number of concerts at around 2.5 weekly performances

Abstract Under the trends of the globalization and symbol consumption, the creative industries from kownledge economy become the opportunity of Taiwan development in the future. Take a broad view of the evolution of Taiwan creative industries in recent years, although the name ' cultural industry ' based on the community build is close for 'creative industries' from Britain, these are two different development concept. Because of some misunderstands, it reduce effect of the industry popularize to cause, this becomes the proposition cared about most in this research too. The purpose of research is probes into Taiwan regional ' cultural industry ' and difference of ' creative industries '¡Bprobes into the characteristic of creative industries, and get the strategy of the new product development in the creativity industries. This research choose the craft industry, and the method is case study research , with the analysis of secondary data and the interview. The conclusion part, There are eight items in analysis including ' the industries with high risk '¡B' possess the plural skill group ', ' create the goods which accord with the market ', ' with high regular costs and low costs with making again ', ' people create for means getting scarce ', ' manage risk by means of the enterprise ', ' diversifying profit ', 'technology is key '.and the new product in development is ¡uMr. Bliss¡v.

The rising importance of culture in social cohesion and economic development necessitates the analysis of cultural consumption from an economic point of view.This is important to understand household profiles which provide a certain typology on the socio-economic and demographic patterns of cultural consumption. In this thesis, we identify the households that spend on recreation and culture, the amount they spend and the potential factors that impact households&rsquo / recreation and culture expenditures in Turkey using the 2003 Household Budget Survey of the Turkish Statistical Institute. The results of a multivariate Tobit analyses suggest that total household expenditures, household size and its composition, age of household head and higher education level and place of residence are significant determinants of a household&rsquo / s expenditures on recreation and culture in Turkey. Our results also indicate recreation and culture to be luxury goods with an estimated income elasticity of 1.55. The multivariate analyses also showed very different expenditure patterns among household residing in different regions of the country. While this result may indicate different tastes and preferences of households residing in different regions it may also be that the supply of cultural goods differ between regions. The impacts of education level together with the socioeconomic factors on household recreation and culture expenditures provide useful insights not only for the suppliers of recreational and cultural goods and services, but also for the policymakers who can influence household consumption behavior (that includes both participation and spending) through using both demand and supply-side instruments.