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Université libre de Bruxelles FACULTÉ SOLVAY BRUSSELS SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT Three Essays in the Econonnics of Music: Réputation and Success of Musicians Thèse de Doctorat présentée en vue de l'obtention du titre de Docteur en Sciences Economiques et de Gestion Par Cédric Ceulemans Directeur: Professeur Patrick Legros - Université libre de Bruxelles Co-directeur: Professeur Victor Ginsburgh - Université libre de Bruxelles Membres du jury: Professeur Antonio Estache - Université libre de Bruxelles Professeur Kathryn Graddy - Brandeis University Professeur Sébastien Van Bellegem - Université catholique Université libre de Bruxelles FACULTÉ SOLVAY BRUSSELS SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT Three Essays in the Economies of Music: Réputation and Success of Musicians Thèse de Doctorat présentée en vue de l'obtention du titre de Docteur en Sciences Economiques et de Gestion Par Cédric Ceulemans Directeur: Professeur Patrick Legros - Université libre de Bruxelles Co-directeur: Professeur Victor Ginsburgh - Université libre de Bruxelles Membres du jury: Professeur Antonio Estache - Université libre de Bruxelles Professeur Kathryn Graddy- Brandeis University Professeur Sébastien Van Bellegem - Université catholique de Louvain Université Libre de Bruxelles 00; 53^640 Académie Universitaire Wallonie-Bruxelles Acknowledgments First and Foremost I want to thank my advisors Prof. Victor Ginsburgh and Prof. Patrick Legros. Without their support I would not hâve been able to start, pursue, or finish my thesis. Victor is an amazing advisor, a great scholar, and a passionate intellectual. The scope of his knowledge and interests are so vast that it could hâve discouraged me. Instead, his appetite for knowledge revealed to be contagious and a constant source of inspiration. My ambition for the future is to match Victor’s willingness to learn and ability to keep moving forward.^ For the motives mentioned above, for his kindheartedness and for many others reasons, Victor’s selfless time and encouragements were sometimes ail that kept me going. I was fortunate to be aiso advised by Patrick who let me work on my own when needed but whose door was aiways open when I had questions or needed feedback. As a co-author, I had the opportunity to witness and learn from his great intellectual creativity and his Sharp mind. An unforgettable lesson and expérience I hope to repeat in the future. Above his or her inputs in my thesis, each member of the jury contributed to my professional growth in one way or the other. I am sincerely thankfui to Prof. Antonio Estache, Prof. Kathryn Graddy, and Prof. Sébastien Van Bellegem for their extra time and considération. I thank Prof. Marjorie Gassner. She is an exemplary teacher and, besides her gigantic work for the university, she still takes the time to support and advice teaching assistants. From my “T.A.” period, I want to thank Prof. Abdul Noury and my “Micro” colleagues: Nastassia, Nicky, and Mohamed. I enjoyed working and laughing with you. ^ I know it will be hard for me to match Victor in those areas. However, the certainty of failure should not be an excuse not to try. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” (Winston Churchill) From my “DEA” period, I want to thank Claude Adan, who warmiy welcomed me at EGARES and has been so helpfui ever since, as well as my “companions in crime": Sadibou and Juan Manuel. Finally, I thank my closest friends, Jeanine D.M., my parents-in-law and my family. Very spécial thanks are due to my parents and “big” brothers. Last but not least, I am infinitely thankfui to my wife, Julie, and our little “pumpkin” Estelle.^ ^ Estelle probably does not care about my thanks right now. My guess is that she is much more preoccupied by the following metaphysical question: “Will I eat strawberries or raspberries for desert tonight?” 2 Table of Contents Introduction 4 Chapter 1 : Rock Bands: Matching, Recording & Work Organization 12 1. Introduction 13 2. Rock Mu sic: Records and Musicians 14 2.1. Records 14 2.2. Musicians: song-makers, entertainers and “rentiers” 20 3. Data 24 4. Behavior and Work Organization of Rock Bands 25 4.1. Bands 26 4.2. Solo artists 32 4.3. Producers 34 5. Rock and Roll Bands, (In)complete Contracts and Creativity* 35 5.1. Specifying matchings 37 5.2. Data 41 5.3. Results and conclusions 41 6. Conclusion 43 Chapter 2: Musical Characteristics and Success in Popular Music 46 1. Introduction 47 2. Charts 49 3. Data 50 3.1. Choice of songs included in the database 51 3.2. Measures of success 54 3.3. Musical characteristics and control variables 55 4. Results 59 4.1. Commercial success 60 4.2. Critics’ and music lovers’ success 65 5. Discussion and Conclusion 67 Chapter 3: The Formation of the Canon of Baroque Music** 70 1. Introduction 71 2. Method and data 72 3. Results 74 3.1. Does a consensus exist between musicologists? 74 3.2. Persistence of composers’ réputations 78 3.3. Do évaluations follow an autoregressive process? 82 3.4. National bias and composer spécifie effects 87 4. Discussion and Conclusions 88 * Section 5 of Chapter 1 was published as C. Ceulemans, V. Ginsburgh and P. Legros (2011), "Rock and Roll bands; (In)complete contracts and creativity". American Economie Review, Papers and Proceedings 101(3), 223-242. ** A slightly different version of Chapter 3 was published as C. Ceulemans (2010), "The réputation of Baroque composers 1790-2000". Empirical Studies of the Arts 28(2), 223-242. 3 Introduction The odds of success in the arts are and hâve aiways been extremely low. In his “Lettre sur le commerce des livres”, Diderot (1763) stated that “one out of ten books is a success, four will sell well enough to recoup the costs in the long run and the remaining five books are produced at a loss.”^ The probability of success is even lower in the contemporary music industry. Roughiy 80 percent of the albums released fail to cover their costs (Caves, 2000, p.61).