Ernan Haruvy Named Donna Wilhelm Research Fellow at SMU’s National Center for Arts Research

Dr. Ernan Haruvy, professor of marketing at The University of Texas at Dallas, has been named the second Donna Wilhelm Research Fellow at SMU’s National Center for Arts Research (NCAR). NCAR analyzes data on arts organizations and their communities nationwide and develops free reports on important issues in arts management and patronage, with the goal of helping arts and cultural leaders make more informed decisions and improve the health of their organizations.

The Wilhelm fellowship, an annual, one-year appointment, was launched in 2015 through the efforts of Dallas philanthropist and civic leader Donna Wilhelm. Wilhelm provided a $500,000 challenge grant that raised a total of $1 million for NCAR’s research, programs and services, including endowment of the new fellowship.

It was a strategic investment, said Wilhelm. “I challenged our donor community to fund in a collaborative way, because I believe that establishing, sustaining and staffing the National Center for Arts Research at SMU can impact the vitality of any arts organization, anywhere in America.”

As a Wilhelm Fellow, Haruvy will help with ongoing efforts to integrate household-level data into the NCAR “spatial model,” which maps and analyzes the interplay between each arts organization and its community. He will also serve as an intellectual partner with NCAR, working with them on their publications and reports. In addition, he will serve as an ambassador for the organization, raising awareness of NCAR’s research findings within the academic community. He is currently focusing on NCAR projects that examine how distance affects patrons’ arts attendance.

“Ernan is such a terrific resource for NCAR; his expertise at the intersection of how consumers behave and how markets work will be invaluable in NCAR’s efforts to understand and model the dynamics of arts and culture activity,” said Glenn Voss, research director of NCAR.

“I am honored and thrilled by the opportunity to be a part of this very impressive group and to assist in NCAR’s efforts to utilize academic insights for the benefit of the arts as well as the community,” said Haruvy.

Haruvy earned his Ph.D. in economics in 1999 from The University of Texas at Austin with concentrations in game theory and econometrics, and specialties in behavioral and experimental economics. He completed his post-doctoral work at Harvard University under Nobel laureate Alvin Roth, where the two worked on applying behavioral economics insights to market design. Since joining The University of Texas at Dallas in 2001, he has worked on applying behavioral models – using experimental methods, data analysis and economic theory – to improve the design of markets, including applications in auctions, procurement, electronic commerce, sponsored search and software markets. He publishes in various journals such as American Economic Review, Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of Finance.

The inaugural NCAR Wilhelm Fellow was Dr. Richard Briesch, a professor of marketing in the SMU Cox School of Business, who was instrumental in creating NCAR’s spatial model and who introduced the idea of stochastic frontier analysis – a method of economic modeling – as the approach to providing organizations with their KIPI Dashboard. NCAR’s newest tool, the interactive, online KIPI Dashboard allows arts organizations to find out how their companies are performing compared to similar organizations, what they are doing well and where improvements could be made – and giving them tools and resources to help make those improvements.

NCAR was established in 2012 by the Meadows School of the Arts and Cox School of Business at SMU. Its initiatives include regular reports on the health of the arts in the U.S.; additional white papers on selected topics such as diversity and equity in the arts; national and regional conferences and presentations; creation of an annual arts vibrancy index report, ranking the U.S. cities with the most thriving arts and culture scenes; ongoing data analysis; and the KIPI Dashboard. NCAR is led by Dr. Zannie Voss, chair and professor of arts management and arts entrepreneurship in the Meadows School of the Arts and Cox School of Business, and Dr. Glenn Voss, endowed professor of marketing at Cox School of Business. Through this leadership, NCAR sources its cross-disciplinary academic expertise in the fields of arts management, marketing and statistics from Meadows and Cox faculty. For more information, visit smu.edu/artsresearch.