Switching Channels: Organization and Change in TV Broadcasting



May 6, 2005 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Room 140A, The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue

Richard E. Caves, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, Harvard University

Download a selection from “Switching Channels: Organization and Change in TV Broadcasting”

After a career of innovative work in international economics and industrial organization, economist Richard Caves’ recent research has focused on the organization of the arts and entertainment industries. This workshop will highlight work from Richard Caves’ forthcoming book, Switching Channels: Organization and Change in TV Broadcasting. Extending the analysis presented in his acclaimed Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce, which uses the tools of industrial economics and the theory of contracts to explain why creative industries and the deals struck within them take the forms that they do, Switching Channels provides a deft analysis of the current state of television broadcasting. This work, which addresses how fundamental properties of creative industries “affect the organization and economic performance of TV production and distribution,” goes beyond much previous economic research on broadcasting in two ways. First, the majority of the previous research is dated. Second, and more importantly, Caves’ work approaches this subject through questions about the behavior and organization of the broadcasting sector, not from a public-policy orientation. While this may at first seem odd considering current debates about television programming, Caves argues that for public-policy approaches to broadcasting to be fruitful, one must first understand the organizational and economic dynamics of television

This presentation should appeal to anyone who is interested in industrial organization, broadcasting, or the ways in which economic analysis can help explain the organization of creative activities.

This workshop/presentation should appeal to anyone who is interested in regional economic planning and development.

About Richard E. Caves: Richard E. Caves is Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He taught at Harvard from 1962 to 2003, having previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley. His research has been mainly in the fields of international economics and industrial organization, but in recent years he has focused on the organization of the arts and entertainment industries.

In addition to his teaching and research, Caves has served as deputy to the Special Assistant to the President on foreign trade policy, has been a member on of a White House Task Force on Foreign Economic Policy, and has been a consultant on international monetary problems for the Council of Economic Advisors.


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