FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF CULTURE
Culture and the economy: does the support to artistic endeavor
need a new justification?
In prosperous times, politicians used "socio-politico-cultural"
arguments to justify their support of artistic endeavour, being
aware that culture conveys values, ideas, and meaning, and that
it is indispensable to the development of society. The economic
side of culture was often ignored.
However, times have changed. As a result of fiscal prudence, fewer
public resources are being allocated to culture. In defending their
support of cultural creation, governments have difficulty in justifying
their interventions for purely cultural reasons; they are often
required to justify it in economic terms. The economics of culture,
long disregarded, is now gaining center stage. Governments are now
addressing questions like: Should support to culture be dependent
on its ability to generate revenues? If so, how can the commercialization
of culture be avoided?
Culture as a source of income?
Since the 1990s, cultural creation has enjoyed renewed vigour with
the advent of the cultural industries. As an industrial sector that
blends the creation, production, and marketing of goods and services
of a cultural nature, the cultural industries have altered how cultural
creation is perceived.
Nowadays, cultural creation not only fosters social cohesion and
stands as something with which we can identify, but it is also a
good as well as a "service" in economic terms. As products
that are capitalized on and disseminated according to an economics
model, cultural goods and services generate revenue.
The economic impact of culture has long been underestimated, and
little research has been done on the subject. At the international
level, comparisons between countries are still difficult to make
in light of the absence of common denominators.
The Swiss case
In Switzerland, an initial pilot study has revealed that about
3% of taxable businesses are active in the cultural industries.
These businesses generate taxable income totaling more than 2% of
the total taxable income for the entire Swiss economy. As well,
cultural industries represent over 2% of the labour market in Switzerland.
The cultural-industries sector shows great promise, as can be seen
from the average growth rate for the last few years, reaching 5%
to 6%, when the overall growth rate for the Swiss economy stood
at a paltry 1% during this same period.
Another clear example comes to us from Canada, where a thriving
cultural sector an important economic asset for their society, creating
jobs and associated economic impacts. For example, in 2001, the
direct contribution of the cultural sector to Canada's GDP was estimated
at $26 billion. In the following year, the cultural labour force
consisted of almost 578,000 direct jobs, making up 3.7% of Canada's
total workforce. Moreover, the job growth rate for the cultural
sector was greater over the past ten years than the Canadian average.
(Statistics Canada, Cultural Statistics Program. Focus on Culture.
Volume 14, number 3.) And with the growing importance of knowledge-based
industries, the cultural creative sector has taken on all the more
economic importance, as many jobs in this area are knowledge-based
service positions. The cultural sector is also at the cutting edge
of early adoption of technology, thus contributing to the growth
of innovation in national economies.
These figures show that cultural policy is no longer a strictly
cultural; the cultural market is also economically driven. More
and more private businesses, sponsors, and organizations have recognized
the economic potential of culture and are looking for ways to tap
into it. Cultural creations, publicly funded cultural institutions,
and cultural-industry products, which are subject to the laws of
the marketplace, are bound together.
Cultural Policy: Questions for the Future
Given the recognition of the dual nature of culture by INCP Ministers,
and the central role it plays within the Preliminary Draft text
on the Convention for the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural
Contents and Artistic Expressions, INCP Ministers may want to consider
a number of related questions in future discussions.
What kind of support does culture need in order to strengthen its
economic potential? How can governments ensure that creativity is
safeguarded while, at the same time, strengthening this economic
potential? Do financing models addressing the dual nature of culture
already exist within your own countries? What is the role of public
versus private sector funding? Can each sector nurture both aspects
of the duality of culture?
Can partnerships be formed between the two sectors?
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