Do behaviours in cultural markets affect economic resilience? An analysis of Italian regions

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relation between the economic resilience and cultural behaviour, resorting to the evidence provided by the 20 Italian regions at the time of the Great Recession. We consider specific cultural behaviours, which provide a specific meaning of culture; its relation with the economic resilience of regions is analysed. We document that higher levels of supplied and demanded quantity of cultural goods in a region are associated with higher regional economic resilience as measured by the ability of limiting employment drop; the relation with the considered cultural behaviours is weaker in the case of economic resilience as measured by the ability of limiting income drop. We propose possible explanations for this asymmetry.