April 22, 2005 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Room 140c, Harris School of Public Policy Studies
Ann Markusen, Fesler-Lambert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs and Director of the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
View the papers: “The Artistic Dividend: The Arts’ Hidden Contributions to Regional Development” and “The Artistic Dividend Revisited.”
Markusen is a significant contributor to the developing field of research on arts and regional economy. While other services, finance, and industry are often seen as the core indicators of economic health, the arts and artists, a few “stars” excepted, have to this point been seen solely as consequences of economic success. Markusen argues that this is a distorted view of the structure of regional economies: rather than relying on the robust economic development of their regions, she claims that the arts, whether through the contribution of foundation support, tourist dollars, or the artists themselves, often provide essential, underappreciated contributions to the economic sustainability of regional economies. For her Cultural Policy presentation, Markusen will go beyond her previously published essays, “The Artistic Dividend” and “The Artistic Dividend Revisited,” to discuss new data and findings that relate specifically to Chicago’s arts community.
Markusen has a history in Chicago policy. Markusen spent five years in Chicago in the mid-1980s, first as Research Director for Mayor Harold Washington's Task Force on Steel and Southeast Chicago and later as Professor of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, where she was also a senior fellow at the university's Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research and taught the MBA Economic Development course in the Kellogg School of Management. An expert on the midwestern industrial economy, she was a frequent participant on John Callaway's Chicago Tonight Show's Economics Roundtable and wrote a 1999 cover story for the Chicago Reader on "The Great Chicago Slump."
This workshop/presentation should appeal to anyone who is interested in regional economic planning and development. Robert J. LaLonde, Professor, The Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, will serve as a respondent, and discuss the use of existing data sources (BLS and Census) in interpreting regional economic development.
About Ann Markusen: Ann Markusen is Fesler-Lambert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs and Director of the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. Currently, her research focuses on occupational approaches to regional development and on the arts, high tech and defense activities as regional economic stimulants. Before joining the Humphrey Institute, Markusen was State of New Jersey Professor of Urban Planning and Policy Development at Rutgers University. She has held faculty positions at Northwestern, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Colorado. She holds doctorate and master of arts degrees in economics from Michigan State University and an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.