Are the Arts the Economic Engine of Affluence?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12223
• Date: 01 May 2014
• Published date: 01 May 2014
• Author: Michelle Evans

Book Reviews 431

Michael Rushton, ed., Creative Communities: Art

Works in Economic Development (Washington,

DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2013). 225 pp.

$29.95 (paper), ISBN: 9780815724735.

Developed out of a partnership between

the National Endowment for the Arts

and the Brookings Institution (an inde-

pendent research body and publisher), Creative

Communities: Art Works in Economic Development,

edited by Michael Rushton, presents nine diverse

empirical studies on the economic impact of the

arts. Employing new growth theory as a rallying cry,

the scholars in this book cohesively argue that high

human capital or talented innovators and intellectu-

als with great ideas stimulate economic growth.  is

theoretical positioning creates the foundation for the

Are the Arts the Economic Engine of Af‌f‌l uence?

Sonia M. Ospina and Rogan Kersh, Editors

Michelle Evans

Charles Sturt University, Australia

authors to address the pursuit of empirical economic

evidence so desperately desired by the arts and cul-

tural sectors.

Considering the dark side of economic theories,

including new growth theory (Romer 1990), and

the impact they have on the arts and cultural sec-

tors, is critically important to the nascent f‌i eld of

arts and economic development. It is within this

frame that I ask, are the arts an engine for af‌f‌l uence

if comprehended in this fashion? Rushton and his

collaborators secure their empirical investigations

to the “economics of knowledge” (Warsh 2006, xv).

New growth theory argues that creativity, innovation,

and knowledge are the drivers of economies. So, the

lack thereof, as Romer points out—“it is ideas, not

objects, that poor countries lack” (2008)—creates a

Michelle Evans, originally from the

Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Australia,

is senior lecturer in leadership in the

School of Management and Marketing at

Charles Sturt University and a fellow in

the Melbourne Business School, where she

leads Australia’s f‌i rst indigenous business

master class series, established to improve

the skills of indigenous entrepreneurs.

She is a fellow of the Research Center for

Leadership in Action at New York University

(2014), Fulbright Scholar (2013), and

trustee of the Yvonne Cohen Award for

Indigenous Creative Young People.

E-mail: mievans@csu.edu.au