Macroeconomic Determinants of Performed Operas: A Multi-Country Study 2014-2018

The analysis of a quarterly panel of ten countries covering 75 percent of the worldwide opera performances through the years 2014 to 2018 showed that the number of performances depend positively on growth and strongly negatively on unexpected inflation. Furthermore, highly significant country effects correspond with the differing operational procedures of opera houses, while a time effect indicates a negative trend of the number of performances. By contrast, the share of most important composers in the performances seems to be rather stable: there is no significant dependence on growth and inflation and very weak time effects exist. However, we find strong country differences in the share of composers' work performed. There is mostly a home bias and some of the cross-country patterns have historical roots.