Paper presented at the Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Cultural Economics held May 12-14, 1986, at the Palace of the Popes in Avignon, France.

This paper concerns the financial structure of major American orchestras and characteristics of their programming. The frequencies of popular symphonies or contemporary works have no correlation with an orchestra's financial size. On the other hand, the concerto ratio is negatively correlated with the budget size. The orchestras with the largest budgets generally play fewer concertos. One cannot reject the hypothesis that an orchestra schedules more concertos when it is financially pressed. One explanation may be that orchestras use concertos to attract larger audiences. A second explanation of this result comes from the efficiency wage hypothesis. Greater effort from the members of a large-budget orchestra enables it to program more orchestral music and fewer concertos. (p. 209)

Includes references and appendix.

Paper presented at the Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Cultural Economics held May 12-14, 1986, at the Palace of the Popes in Avignon, France.