Disposición a pagar por bienes del patrimonio cultural inmaterial: Experimento de elección discreta para cuerpos artísticos de ballet, orquesta y coro de Bahía Blanca (Argentina)

Methodologies seeking to determine the individual ́s willingness to pay to enjoy or preserve cultural heritage goods are increasingly used as a reference in establishing the price of access or as a criterion to determine the amount of transfers that the government should allocate to preserve heritage, in the belief that the cons-truction and preservation of cultural assets should have roots in the community where they are located. The objective of this study is to estimate the economic value that the population gives to three artistic bodies that are part of the cultural heritage of Bahía Blanca (Argentina), such as the Ballet del Sur, the Symphony Orchestra and the Stable Choir, all publicly managed and financed. We apply a technique based on a discrete choice experiment in a convenience sample of 678 adults residing in the city. We found no differences in the willingness to pay according to the day of the week or the type of performance offered. It was found that the mean willingness to pay for attending presentations by these bodies is USD 0.7 for the Choir, USD 1.3 for the Orchestra and USD 1.9 for the Ballet. These estimates are compared with those obtained for similar intangible cultural assets located outside the city. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results for cultural policy.