Breaking Baumol: The Economics of Nonprofit Arts

Catalog description

Breaking Baumol introduces students to the predominant business models employed by US-based arts and cultural organizations, and the contradictions and conflicts those businesses bring to bear. For years nonprofit organizations have proliferated throughout the arts. While these “charitable” organizations are granted benefits to both increase revenue and decrease expenses, they have resulted in an arts sector that is overly-reliant on old ways of working with systemic inequities regarding power and control, allergic to change, and continuously struggling with the same operating concerns and risks. Using the Brown Arts Institute and other local organizations as case studies, students will interrogate the business model by examining when it works, where it doesn’t work, and why it has persisted over time. The course is a primer for undergraduate and graduate students interested in creative careers and/or concentrations from the arts departments.