A CCi Research Agenda from the Perspective of Economic Theory

The cultural and creative industries have very distinct features. From the supplier’s perspective, inherent uncertainty and lack of predictability combined with high failure rates. On the demand side, consumers are not autonomous but are directly affected by the behaviour of others. Further, an individual’s demand for a product may either rise the more other people buy it (bandwagon effect), fall (snob effect) or rise with price (Veblen effect). In consequence, markets will typically exhibit multiple equilibria and demand curves will be non-monotonic with respect to price. The paper sets out ideas for a research strategy to explore these features.