CULTURAL ECONOMICS & THE CREATIVE ECONOMY

CULTURAL ECONOMICS & THE CREATIVE ECONOMY (CE) is an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to publishing high-quality original research covering all fields within the disciplines of cultural economics and the creative economy. The journal engages with a broad spectrum of topics—from the economic analysis of arts and culture markets to policy design for creative industries, from the valuation of cultural heritage to business model innovation in the digital creative economy, from artists’ labour markets to global cultural trade—providing a serious and open scholarly platform for global cultural economists, creative industry researchers, policy-makers, and cultural practitioners.

The core conviction of CE is “Discovering the deep logic of value creation at the intersection of culture and economy.” We believe that cultural economics should not treat culture merely as yet another object of economic analysis, but should seriously engage with the distinctiveness of cultural value—its resistance to full quantification, its public good attributes, and its social significance beyond the dimension of price. At the same time, research on the creative economy should not indulge in romanticised imaginings of the “creative class” and “creative cities,” but should maintain a sober and critical examination of the labour conditions of creative production, the concentration of platform power, and the risks of cultural homogenisation. The journal adopts a flexible publication policy that takes Open Access as the default model while allowing Non-Open Access publication under special circumstances, balancing the global free dissemination of scholarship with the specific needs of particular research contexts.

Publication Model and Open Access Statement

CE operates a Hybrid Open Access Model, with the following specific policies:

Default Model: Full Open Access

In the vast majority of cases, CE operates as a Diamond Open Access journal:

• Free for all readers: All articles published under the Open Access model are immediately, permanently, and unconditionally available to readers worldwide. No subscription, no registration, no paywalls. We believe that research findings on cultural economics and the creative economy should be freely accessible to scholars, artists, cultural institution managers, creative industry practitioners, policy-makers, students, and the public worldwide, to promote the vitality of cultural production and the healthy development of the creative economy.

• Zero or minimal cost for authors: CE completely waives Article Processing Charges for papers recognised through peer review as being of exceptional scholarly quality, demonstrating outstanding originality and practical impact. For other Open Access papers, the journal charges only a minimal fee far below industry standards, solely to sustain basic operations. Authors from under-resourced regions and the Global South may apply for full or partial fee waivers.

• Open licensing: All Open Access articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0). Authors retain copyright of their work and grant anyone the right to share, adapt, and reuse the material, provided appropriate credit is given, to maximise knowledge dissemination and practical translation in the fields of cultural economics and the creative economy.

Special Cases: Non-Open Access

In the following special circumstances, upon author request and with the approval of the editorial team, articles may be published under a Non-Open Access model:

• Funder mandates: Certain cultural industry corporate-funded research projects, government-commissioned studies, or collaborative commercial research impose specific confidentiality or access restrictions that conflict with the CC BY licence of full Open Access.

• Commercially sensitive information and intellectual property protection: Content involving undisclosed cultural enterprise financial data, proprietary creative business models, commercially valuable market analysis reports, copyright transaction details, or core algorithms of digital platforms, where full open dissemination could harm the legitimate interests of the relevant enterprises or research partners.

• Cultural heritage and intellectual property sensitivity: Content involving artistic works still under copyright protection, unpublished archival materials, cultural heritage data closely tied to community interests, or traditional knowledge, where full open dissemination could raise legal or ethical concerns.

• Authors’ specific publication needs: Authors may request Non-Open Access publication based on reasonable grounds such as career development, institutional evaluation requirements, or future publication plans.

• Legal and compliance requirements: Laws and regulations in certain countries or regions impose specific restrictions on the dissemination of research content involving cultural market regulation, copyright protection, auction compliance, or cultural property protection.

Under the Non-Open Access model: articles will be published under traditional subscription or paid-access arrangements; copyright arrangements and licensing conditions will be negotiated separately with authors; the journal will clearly mark the access status in the article’s metadata to ensure full transparency. The proportion of Non-Open Access articles will be strictly controlled to ensure that the journal’s overall Open Access character is not diluted. The editorial team retains final decision-making authority over the approval of Non-Open Access publication, and this decision will not affect the academic standards of peer review.

Aims, Scope, and Core Areas

CE is rooted in the rich scholarly traditions of cultural economics and creative economy research while actively responding to the new challenges brought about by digital technology, globalisation, and the transformation of cultural production modes. The journal’s fundamental position is that cultural economics research must go beyond simple cost-benefit calculations and enter the complexity of cultural value—how aesthetic value, symbolic value, social value, and market value interweave, conflict, and transform. Creative economy research, while celebrating innovation and vitality, must also seriously confront issues of inequality, precarity, and power concentration. CE strives to maintain a creative tension between the rigour of economic analysis and the critical edge of cultural studies.

The journal covers all fields of cultural economics and the creative economy and especially welcomes high-quality submissions in the following areas:

Foundations of Cultural Economics

• The multidimensionality of cultural value: economic value, aesthetic value, social value, and symbolic value

• Characteristics of cultural products: experience goods, public goods, and quasi-public goods

• Theories of cultural consumption: taste formation, rational addiction, and cultural capital

• Economic principles of art markets: information asymmetry, uncertainty, and intermediation mechanisms

• Economic organisation of cultural production: from studios to transnational conglomerates

• Normative foundations of cultural policy: market failures, value pluralism, and the rationale for public support

• Dialogues between cultural economics and welfare economics

• Methodological reflections in cultural economics: integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches

Economics of the Performing Arts

• Economic operations of theatres, concert halls, and performing arts organisations

• Cost disease and unproductive growth in the performing arts

• Box office pricing, audience segmentation, and demand elasticity

• Public funding for the performing arts: subsidies, tax incentives, and sponsorship

• Economics of the music industry: from records to streaming

• Live music, touring, and the festival economy

• Labour markets for dancers and theatre artists

• Business model innovation in performing arts organisations

Visual Arts and the Art Market

• The art market: galleries, auction houses, and art fairs

• Price formation for artworks: reputation mechanisms, trends, and speculation

• Globalisation and regional differentiation in the contemporary art market

• Art investment: indices, returns, and risks

• Structures and inequalities of artists’ professional incomes

• Street art, graffiti, and the non-market value of public space

• Digital art, crypto art, and the market logic of NFTs

• Regulation, transparency, and anti-money laundering in the art market

Economics of Cultural Heritage

• Economic valuation of cultural heritage: use values and non-use values

• Economics of museum and heritage site management

• Heritage tourism: demand management, carrying capacity, and authenticity

• Cost-benefit analysis of heritage conservation

• Economic dimensions of intangible cultural heritage: skills transmission and community benefit

• Digitisation of cultural heritage: costs, value, and sharing

• Economics of heritage destruction, conflict, and reconstruction

• Economic effects and policy implications of the World Heritage List

Creative Industries and the Creative Economy

• Definitions, classifications, and statistical boundaries of creative industries

• Theoretical frameworks of the creative economy: from the concept of the creative class to systemic critique

• Publishing, media industries, and the content economy

• Economics of the film industry: production, distribution, and exhibition

• The games industry and the interactive entertainment economy

• Design industries and the fashion economy

• Advertising, branding, and cultural intermediaries

• Creative industry clusters, parks, and urban space

The Digital Creative Economy

• Cultural production and consumption in the platform economy

• Economic logic and cultural effects of streaming platforms

• The creator economy: short video, influencers, and personal brand monetisation

• Impact and reshaping of traditional creative industries by digital platforms

• Algorithmic curation: recommendation systems and the filtering of cultural diversity

• Artificial intelligence and creative production: economics and ethics of generative AI

• Digital copyright, piracy, and willingness to pay

• Virtual worlds, the metaverse, and new spaces of cultural consumption

• Blockchain, decentralisation, and the transformation of cultural property rights

Cultural Policy and Governance

• Theoretical foundations and objective systems of cultural policy

• Models of cultural funding: grants, tax incentives, and lottery funds

• Creative economy policy: from creative cities to national strategies

• Protection and promotion of cultural diversity: policy instruments and effectiveness evaluation

• International cultural trade rules and exception clauses

• Economic analysis of the copyright system: incentives, monopoly, and sharing

• Cultural governance: the allocation of roles among government, market, and civil society

• Challenges and opportunities of digital cultural policy

Creative Labour and Careers

• The nature of creative work: project-based, flexible, and precarious

• Income distribution and poverty risk among creative workers

• Artists’ portfolio survival strategies and second careers

• Gender gaps and racial inequality in creative work

• Unpaid internships in the creative sector and class barriers

• Casualised creative labour in the platform era

• Social security and collective organisation of creative workers

• Entry barriers and diversification in creative careers

Cultural Consumption and Audience Research

• Social stratification of cultural participation: who consumes high culture?

• Formation and intergenerational transmission of cultural consumption habits

• Changing patterns of cultural consumption in the digital age

• Audience research: motivation, experience, and loyalty

• Value co-creation in cultural consumption

• The fan economy: affective labour and community consumption

• Comparison of consumption behaviour across cultural groups

• Cultural consumption and well-being

Creative Cities and Regional Development

• Creative city theory: from Florida to his critics

• Cultural districts, creative parks, and urban regeneration

• Investment in cultural infrastructure and urban economies

• Economic effects of mega-events (Olympic Games, Capitals of Culture, etc.)

• Creative economy development in rural and peripheral areas

• Spatial distribution and inequality of culture

• Creative industries and place branding, cultural identity

• Creative economy transformation of post-industrial cities

Cultural Trade and Globalisation

• International trade in cultural products: patterns, barriers, and promotion

• The cultural exception and cultural diversity

• Globalisation and the risks of cultural homogenisation

• Transnational cultural conglomerates and global cultural production networks

• Cultural diplomacy, soft power, and economic interests

• Protection and growth of cultural industries in developing countries

• Cross-cultural consumption and cultural distance

• Fairness and justice in cultural trade

Cultural Financing and Investment

• Financing cultural projects: private equity, crowdfunding, and public funds

• Investment and financing models for cultural infrastructure

• Impact investing and the creative economy

• Cultural insurance and risk management

• Financing and valuation of creative start-ups

• Economic analysis of cultural sponsorship and philanthropy

• Mergers and acquisitions in cultural industries

• Securitisation of cultural assets and cultural property rights trading

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Cultural Economics

• Methods and challenges of measuring cultural value

• Cultural participation from the perspective of happiness economics

• Application of contingent valuation method (CVM) and choice experiments in the cultural field

• Construction and improvement of cultural statistics indicator systems

• Application of big data and social media analysis in cultural research

• Input-output analysis and employment contribution of cultural industries

• Satellite accounts and statistical frameworks for the creative economy

• Introduction of participatory research and community-based methods

Interdisciplinary Dialogue
CE consistently welcomes boundary-crossing scholarship from economics, management, sociology, anthropology, communication studies, art history, cultural studies, media studies, geography, law, policy science, data science, and related fields, provided it carries a clear connection to cultural economics and the creative economy.

Sections and Article Types

To foster a multi-dimensional space for scholarly dialogue, CE maintains the following regular sections:

The journal especially welcomes proposals for Special Issues submitted jointly by scholars and policy-makers or cultural practitioners. We encourage proposals that bring together deep, multi-perspectival discussion from multiple disciplines, methods, and regions around a pressing cultural economic problem or emerging creative economy trend, and we welcome guest-editing teams that include both researchers and practitioners to foster genuine interaction between theory and practice.

Editorial Policies and Peer Review

Editorial Structure

CE is led by an Editor-in-Chief, supported by Regional Editors, Associate Editors, and an international Editorial Board whose members represent the full breadth of relevant specialisms, including cultural economics, arts management, creative industry studies, cultural policy, the art market, cultural heritage management, media economics, and digital platform studies. The editorial team is committed to:

• Upholding the journal’s scholarly integrity and intellectual quality;

• Ensuring a fair, transparent, and efficient review process;

• Advancing the journal’s role as an open international forum for cultural economics and creative economy research.

The composition of the Editorial Board reflects genuine diversity in geography, gender, intellectual tradition, disciplinary background, and career stage, to ensure that the journal broadly represents the plurality of voices in global cultural economics and creative economy research.

Peer Review Process

CE operates a double-anonymous review system: reviewers do not know authors’ identities, and authors do not know reviewers’ identities. This policy is designed to minimise biases related to prestige, institutional affiliation, gender, or nationality.

The standard process is as follows:

1. Initial Editorial Screening: All submissions are first assessed by the Editor-in-Chief or an Associate Editor for scholarly quality, originality, and fit. Manuscripts that are clearly unsuitable or have significant scholarly deficiencies are desk-rejected, usually within 1–2 weeks, with an explanatory note.

2. External Review: Manuscripts that pass initial screening are sent to 2–3 external reviewers with relevant expertise for double-anonymous evaluation. For manuscripts involving interdisciplinary intersections or practice-oriented research, editors will invite reviewers from different academic backgrounds or with practical experience.

3. Editorial Decision: Based on the reviewers’ reports and the journal’s overall standards, the editor makes a decision of “Accept,” “Minor Revision,” “Major Revision,” or “Reject,” and provides integrated constructive feedback.

4. Revision and Re-review: Revised manuscripts may be assessed directly by the editor or sent back to reviewers. CE aims to notify authors of the final decision within 8–12 weeks of initial submission.

CE does not accept simultaneous submissions. Allegations of research misconduct—including plagiarism, data fabrication, improper use of images, unethical authorship practices, undisclosed use of AI-generated content, and undisclosed conflicts of interest—are taken seriously and handled in accordance with the best-practice guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Statement on the Use of Images and Copyrighted Materials

Given that cultural economics and creative economy research frequently involves images of artworks, covers of cultural products, advertising materials, film stills, copyright transaction data, and similar materials, CE specifically requires authors to ensure that all images and copyrighted materials used have obtained the necessary permissions, or fall within the principles of fair use. When dealing with artistic works or commercial cultural products still under copyright protection, authors should make every effort to obtain permission from rights holders. For archival materials where the copyright holder cannot be traced, authors should explain the basis for their use and their judgement criteria.

Author Rights and Responsibilities

Author Rights

• Copyright retention: Regardless of whether an article is published under the Open Access or Non-Open Access model, authors retain full copyright of their work. No exclusive copyright transfer is required.

• Open Access articles: Authors grant the journal the right to publish the work under the CC BY 4.0 licence, securing the widest possible attribution and reuse rights globally.

• Non-Open Access articles: Copyright arrangements and licensing conditions will be negotiated separately between the author and the journal, and specified in a written agreement before publication.

• Persistent identifiers: All published works, regardless of publication model, will be assigned permanent Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and disseminated across multiple indexing platforms to ensure visibility and longevity.

Author Responsibilities

Authors are expected to ensure that: the submission is original and previously unpublished; all named authors have made substantive contributions and approved the submission; all sources are accurately cited; data used in the research are authentic and reliable, with data sources, collection methods, and processing procedures clearly stated, particularly when involving cultural enterprise financial data, art market transaction data, creative industry statistics, or policy evaluation data; all images and copyrighted materials have been used with the necessary permissions or in accordance with fair use principles; research involving human subjects, community participation, or fieldwork complies with relevant ethical standards and provides information on ethical review approval where applicable; all conflicts of interest have been truthfully disclosed; all use of AI tools has been truthfully declared; and no conduct violating academic integrity exists.

Why Choose CE?

Spanning all fields of cultural economics and the creative economy: From the economics of the performing arts to the art market, from the valuation of cultural heritage to the digital creative economy, from creative labour studies to cultural trade policy, from creative cities to cultural financing, CE provides a unified scholarly platform for every branch of research in cultural economics and the creative economy. Whatever your area of focus, you will find conversation partners here.

Open Access as the primary principle: As an OA-first journal, your research becomes immediately available to readers worldwide with no economic barriers upon publication. Research in cultural economics and the creative economy can thereby reach beyond academic circles and be freely accessed and used by artists, cultural institution managers, creative entrepreneurs, policy-makers, and the public, maximising its social impact.

A flexible mechanism respecting special publication needs: We understand that some research in cultural economics and the creative economy involves commercially sensitive data, copyrighted materials, and the ethical complexities of cultural heritage. CE's Non-Open Access option ensures that when necessary, your research can be published in a prudent manner without compromising scholarly quality.

Zero or minimal financial burden: Papers recognised through peer review as exceptional are entirely free of all charges. Other papers incur only minimal fees far below industry standards, and authors from under-resourced regions and the Global South may apply for waivers. We are committed to ensuring that economic conditions never become a barrier to scholarly publication.

Rigorous and efficient review: A mature double-anonymous review system with professional, constructive feedback helps strengthen your scholarly work. Our reviewers come from all fields of cultural economics and creative industry research worldwide and attend to the rigour of economic analysis while respecting the distinctive value of cultural studies paradigms.

Inclusive of multiple disciplines and diverse methods: CE welcomes econometric analysis, case studies, policy evaluation, ethnographic methods, participatory research, historical analysis, big data and social media analysis, and many other research paradigms, provided the work is rigorous and insightful.

Connecting scholarship and cultural practice: We believe that good research in cultural economics and the creative economy should be able to inspire real-world cultural decision-making and creative practice. CE seeks to be an intellectual home shared by researchers, policy-makers, cultural institution managers, and creative practitioners, advancing research from the page to policy and practice.

Open copyright and social impact: Under the OA model, the CC BY 4.0 licence ensures that your research can be freely used in classroom teaching, policy analysis, cultural institutional decision-making, and public education, truly maximising the social value of your academic work.

CULTURAL ECONOMICS & THE CREATIVE ECONOMY warmly invites cultural economists across the globe, creative industry researchers, arts managers, cultural policy-makers, artists, creative entrepreneurs, and all thinkers and practitioners concerned with the future of the intersection between culture and economy to join us in building an academic commons that takes openness as its primary spirit, respects the plurality of contexts, pursues scholarly rigour, encourages interdisciplinary dialogue, connects theory and practice, and keeps its borders open. Whether as author, reviewer, or reader, your participation is an essential part of this community.