ABSTRACT
This chapter explores key concepts and methods of mainstream economics associated with the assessment of economic and societal significance of cultural heritage in academic research and related project evaluations. It begins by describing the rationale of assessing the economic value(s) and/or impacts of heritage upon its socioeconomic system for economists and policymakers, explaining key concepts and hypotheses in economic theory, whereby notions of value, utility and public welfare hold specific meanings. It then moves on to review current state of the art, discussing the scope, strengths and limitations of the most popular economics-based approaches and tools at hand for capturing heritage significance, such as hedonic pricing, contingent valuation and wellbeing methods. In doing so, it provides a comprehensive analysis of a topical issue while encouraging critical reflection on wider questions related to public policy, resources management and political economy problems within the context of sustainable heritage. As argued, current economics-based assessments of heritage significance often reduce complex social processes of interaction to monetary expressions of hedonic consumption, whereby experts working from top to bottom determine the worth of investing in the past. To capture heritage significance holistically, related research could experiment with heterodox economic theories while also embracing qualitative participatory tools used across the discipline of heritage studies.
