Cultural heritage issues took relevance at global level thanks also to the World Heritage activity inside Unesco. The economic classification of these “global cultural goods”, albeit some tentative of inclusion in the category of global public good, does not appear straightforward. By selecting cultural sites for inscription in the List, Unesco firstly aims at ensuring that they will be preserved and protected. It follows that Unesco should encourage inscription of those sites which belong to nations where it is more difficult to perform an independent protection and preservation action. For this reason, the World Heritage Centre intends to favour those countries which are endowed with a) a substantial lack of financial resources; b) high risk of political instability; c) scarce social capital, in the sense of little or no identification with heritage by the local community. At first glance inscriptions occurred from 1978 to 2008, seem not to exactly match the official selection criteria. Using data of 130 countries in the period 1978-2008, we provide a preliminary investigation on the determinants of sites’ choice per country considering economic, socio-political and membership variables. The contribution of our paper to the cultural economics research is far from simply searching the determinants of World Heritage List, argument already addressed by literature, but can be found in: 1) the tentative of classify the “global cultural good”; 2) a first assessment of the Unesco’s effectiveness in promoting and preserving this special kind of good. We conclude suggesting a new methodology for inscription of properties in the World Heritage List
De Simone, E., Di Maio, A. (2012). The “global cultural good”: an economic analysis of the World Heritage. DYNAMICS OF SOCIO- ECONOMIC SYSTEMS, 3, 16-34.
The “global cultural good”: an economic analysis of the World Heritage
De Simone E;
2012-01-01
Abstract
Cultural heritage issues took relevance at global level thanks also to the World Heritage activity inside Unesco. The economic classification of these “global cultural goods”, albeit some tentative of inclusion in the category of global public good, does not appear straightforward. By selecting cultural sites for inscription in the List, Unesco firstly aims at ensuring that they will be preserved and protected. It follows that Unesco should encourage inscription of those sites which belong to nations where it is more difficult to perform an independent protection and preservation action. For this reason, the World Heritage Centre intends to favour those countries which are endowed with a) a substantial lack of financial resources; b) high risk of political instability; c) scarce social capital, in the sense of little or no identification with heritage by the local community. At first glance inscriptions occurred from 1978 to 2008, seem not to exactly match the official selection criteria. Using data of 130 countries in the period 1978-2008, we provide a preliminary investigation on the determinants of sites’ choice per country considering economic, socio-political and membership variables. The contribution of our paper to the cultural economics research is far from simply searching the determinants of World Heritage List, argument already addressed by literature, but can be found in: 1) the tentative of classify the “global cultural good”; 2) a first assessment of the Unesco’s effectiveness in promoting and preserving this special kind of good. We conclude suggesting a new methodology for inscription of properties in the World Heritage ListI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
