Platform Papers 7: Does Australia Need a Cultural Policy?

DAVID THROSBY is internationally known for his work in the economics of arts and culture. He is Professor of Economics at Macquarie University and his field of research and writing has included the economic role of artists, the economics of public intervention in arts markets, cultural development, cultural policy, heritage issues and the sustainability of cultural processes. His books include The Economics of the Performing Arts (with Glenn Withers) and Economics and Culture. He has produced several studies for the Australia Council, including But What Do You Do for a Living? A New Economic Study of Australian Artists (with Beverley Thompson, 1994) and Don’t Give Up Your Day Job: an Economic Study of Professional Artists in Australia (with Virginia Hollister, 2003). He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the OECD, FAO and UNESCO and in 1990–93 chaired three Prime Minister’s Working Groups on ecologically sustainable development. He is a past President of the Association for Cultural Economics International, and was Foundation Chair of the National Association for the Visual Arts. He has served on the boards of the Australian Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Copyright Agency Ltd and VISCOPY. He is also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Cultural Economics, the International Journal of Cultural Policy, Poetics and the Pacific Economic Bulletin. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1988. Throsby has also written several plays, one of which (The Number-One Rooster) was produced at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1975.