Museum budgets around the world have been squeezed for years due to rising costs, dwindling funding, and shifts in audiences. Institutions large and small are desperately seeking solutions, from raising ticket prices to taxing tourists, doubling down on corporate sponsorships to guaranteeing works at auction . The goal? Secure more revenue. London’s Whitechapel Gallery has taken financial experimentation one step further by hiring an economist-in-residence—a first for the institution, if not the art world as a whole. The public gallery’s first appointee, Mariana Mazzucato , will serve a three-year term with the aim of rethinking not just how museums make money, but what their social value is. Mazzucato’s appointment is essential to “transforming our shared understanding of the value of culture, socially and politically,” Whitechapel Gallery director Gilane Tawadros said in an email. “Museums, art galleries, theaters, and performing arts spaces across the U.K.…