Paper presented at First International Conference on Arts and Economics, sponsored by the Association for Cultural Economics, held in Edinburgh, Scotland, August 8-10, 1979. Comment by Kenneth Kahn appears on p. 259-260.

The present contribution is explicitly based on the economic model of human behavior, applied to both demanders and suppliers (see, for example, Becker, 1976; McKenzie and Tullock, 1975; and Alchian and Allen, 1977), and is intended to complement both the traditional sociological and economic approaches to the study of museums. We have limited ourselves to art museums, but most of the analysis and conclusions apply to other types of museums as well. The paper focuses in particular on the semipublic type of museum most common on the European continent, with the Kunsthaus in Zurich used as an example. The paper deals mainly with the supply aspects of the museum, that is, with the behavior of the museum directorate. The demand for museum services is only considered to the extent that it constitutes an element in the set of restrictions imposed on the directorate's behavior. The concluding section suggests some possibilities for influencing the supply of museum services.

While the museum is an institution in which several actors - the directorate, professional staff (curators and others), guards, craftspeople and so forth - join together to supply services, the key role of the directorate is our focus. (p. 249)

CONTENTS
Utility of and constraints on the museum directorate.
The behavior of the museum directorate.
Concluding remarks.
Notes.
References [bibliography].

Paper presented at First International Conference on Arts and Economics, sponsored by the Association for Cultural Economics, held in Edinburgh, Scotland, August 8-10, 1979. Comment by Kenneth Kahn appears on p. 259-260.