Abstract
In this paper, we focus on the political economic consequences of devolution of policies dealing with heritage conservation and valorization. In particular, the existence of local policymakers’ vested interests concerning the conservation of heritage—due to its positive effects on tourism—raises the issue of what set of functions, and class of heritage to devolve. Our political economic analysis shows that devolution may favor the conservation of heritage with ‘outstanding characteristics’ over more ‘local’ heritage, leading to an inefficient outcome. We then discuss different possible measures to correct for such a political inefficiency.
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Notes
- 1.
Lichfield (1988) provides a list of different activities regarded as conservation: prevention of deterioration, conservation, consolidation, restoration, rehabilitation, reproduction and reconstruction.
- 2.
Valorization refers to the activities put in practice to spread information and knowledge about cultural heritage and to enhance the attention toward its use.
- 3.
van der Ploeg (2006) discusses different approaches to cultural policy.
- 4.
Peacock (1994) proposes that public participation could be enhanced by greater openness of public appointments in the decision-making bodies and if citizens, who are active in heritage matters, would be allowed to vote for their own representatives within these bodies.
- 5.
Swiss referenda offer interesting evidence on public attitudes toward the arts. Frey (1997) examines the reasons for extending the use of such a method to cultural decisions.
- 6.
For instance, in Italy, the Code of Cultural Goods and Landscape (2004) assigns the functions related to conservation to the central government and valorisation to the Regions and Municipalities. Instead, total devolution applies to some Special Statute Regions.
- 7.
In our model. analytical results would be equivalent if we exclude the inter-regional transfers from taxation. Notice that we do not consider a possible interest of the federal policymaker for redistribution. This issue could be of some relevance when important historical sites are located in relatively poor regions.
- 8.
For a more detailed analysis of this situation of separation of powers, see Mazza and van Winden (2002).
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Martorana, M., Mazza, I., Mignosa, A., Rizzo, I. (2019). The Economics of Heritage: Some Implications of Devolution. In: Kunizaki, M., Nakamura, K., Sugahara, K., Yanagihara, M. (eds) Advances in Local Public Economics . New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives, vol 37. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3107-7_14
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