The articles in this first number of the year all deal with the market aspect of cultural goods. Thus, they look at the commercial impact of word-of-mouth promotion of cultural products; the supply and demand of theatre productions in the Flemish part of Belgium; and the auctioning of concert tickets via e-Bay.

Worth attention is the article by Gemser/Van Oostrum/Leenders: the authors analyse the effects of movie reviews in Dutch newspapers on audience behaviour and film success, revealing that there is a in fact a difference between art house -or independent- movies and mainstream movies, as well as between their respective publics.

And, last but not least, the book review of Arts, Sciences and Economics provides the non-economist with a brief, introductory, overview of the different approaches of cultural economics.

To view the publisher's table of contents with abstracts, please click on this external link. An online version is available for users within the Council of Europe via Swetsline, the Council's subscription agent (click on IP authentication and/or contact the information manager at culturedoc@coe.int for access modalities).