Richard E. Caves is Nathaniel Ropes Research Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University.

Preface Introduction: Economic Properties of Creative Activities Part I: Supplying Simple Creative Goods 1. Artists as Apprentices 2. Artists, Dealers, and Deals 3. Artist and Gatekeeper: Trade Books, Popular Records, and Classical Music 4. Artists, Starving and Well-Fed Part II: Supplying Complex Creative Goods 5. The Hollywood Studios Disintegrate 6. Contracts for Creative Products: Films and Plays 7. Guilds, Unions, and Faulty Contracts 8. The Nurture of Ten-Ton Turkeys 9. Creative Products Go to Market: Books and Records 10. Creative Products Go to Market: Films Part III: Demand for Creative Goods 11. Buffs, Buzz, and Educated Tastes 12. Consumers, Critics, and Certifiers 13. Innovation, Fads, and Fashions Part IV: Cost Conundrums 14. Covering High Fixed Costs 15. Donor-Supported Nonprofit Organizations in the Performing Arts 16. Cost Disease and Its Analgesics Part V: The Test of Time 17. Durable Creative Goods: Rents Pursued through Time and Space 18. Payola 19. Organizing to Collect Rents: Music Copyrights 20. Entertainment Conglomerates and the Quest for Rents 21. Filtering and Storing Durable Creative Goods: Visual Arts 22. New versus Old Art: Boulez Meets Beethoven Epilogue Notes Index

This book explores the organization of creative industries, including the visual and performing arts, movies, theater, sound recordings, and book publishing. In each, artistic inputs are combined with other, ShumdrumS inputs. But the deals that bring these inputs together are inherently problematic: artists have strong views; the muse whispers erratically; and consumer approval remains highly uncertain until all costs have been incurred.