What determines the price of a pop concert or an opera? Why does Hollywood dominate the film industry? Does illegal downloading damage the record industry? Does free entry to museums bring in more visitors? In A Textbook of Cultural Economics, one of the world's leading cultural economists shows how we can use the theories and methods of economics to answer these and a host of other questions concerning the arts (performing arts, visual arts and literature), heritage (museums and built heritage) and creative industries (the music, publishing and film industries, broadcasting). Using international examples and covering the most up-to-date research, the book does not assume a prior knowledge of economics. It is ideally suited for students taking a course on the economics of the arts as part of an arts administration, business, management, or economics degree.

Ruth Towse is Professor of Economics of Creative Industries at the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) at Bournemouth University and Professor Emerita at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Professor Towse is one of the world's leading cultural economists and has taught in universities in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy and Thailand. She was joint editor of the Journal of Cultural Economics from 1993 to 2002 and president of the Association for Cultural Economics International from 2006 to 2008. She was president of the Society for Economic Research on Copyright Issues from 2004 to 2006 and in 2008 was appointed to the Copyright Expert Panel of the strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy in the United Kingdom.