Karol Jan Borowiecki

Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist Karol Jan Borowiecki

This dissertation provides new insights on creativity and the lives of creative people, by availing of unique data-sets covering the lives, works and emotional states of famous music composers. The underlying research documents the long-run persistence of a society’s preference towards cultural goods and shows that the geography of composer births displays remarkable continuity over a period of seven centuries. It formalizes and documents the trade-off between agglomeration economies (beneficial peer effects) and diseconomies (peer crowding) experienced by music composers. Furthermore, it is explored how peer crowding impacts composers’ emotional well-being. The results point to a large reduction in composers’ longevity, if they are located in cities where the peer competition has been greater. Finally, the determinants of psychological well-being are studied and quantitative evidence is provided on the existence of a causal impact of negative emotions on outstanding creativity - an association hypothesized across several disciplines since Antiquity; however, not yet convincingly established.