Report: Arts, culture add $500 billion to nation’s GDP

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Creative industries led by Hollywoodaccount for about $504 billion, or at least
3.2 percent of U.S. goodsand services, the government said in its first official measure of howthe arts and
culture affect the economy.On Thursday, the U.S.Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Endowment for
the Arts willrelease the first-ever estimates of the creative sector’s contributionsto U.S. gross domestic
product based on 2011 data, the most recentfigures available. GDP measures the nation’s production of goods
andservices.Sunil Iyengar, the endowment’s research director, saidthe yardstick devised in partnership with
the Bureau of EconomicAnalysis drew on figures from Hollywood, the advertising industry, cableTV production,
broadcasting, publishing, performing arts and otherareas. Now the nation’s creative sector will be measured
annually, muchas statisticians calculate the contribution of tourism, health care andother sectors to the
nation’s economy."One of the challengesthat’s always been there for economists and even lay people
andcertainly policy makers is to understand what is the arts’ value,"Ilyengar said. "Here’s a
measurable, legitimate, rigorous way oftracking the contributions of the creative economy in the
country."Analystssaid they used preliminary numbers from 2011 and dating back to 1998,including both
for-profit and nonprofit industries in the arts andculture sector.By comparison, the arts and culture
sectoroutpaced the U.S. travel and tourism industry, which was 2.8 percent ofGDP in 2011, based on the
federal estimate. That finding surprised eventhe researchers."Art and culture is a significant part of
theU.S. economy — not just its contributions of ideas and creativity to theinnovation economy but also as an
important part of the labor force andour country’s GDP," NEA Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa said
in astatement.Hollywood movies and video services, the advertisingindustry and cable TV production were
leading contributors to GDP in thecreative sector, the researchers found, followed by
broadcasting,publishing and the performing arts. On their own, the movie and videoindustries contributed $47
million in value-added to the economy in2011.The total output from arts and cultural production,
anothermeasure of economic activity, was $916 billion in 2011, analysts found.That includes $200 billion
from creative development in advertising,$104 billion from arts education including college art departments,
$100billion from cable TV and $83 billion from movies and video services.Inthe workforce, Hollywood and the
video industry employed the mostpeople, totaling 310,000 workers and $25 billion in compensation,according
to the data. Museums and performing arts industries eachemployed about 100,000 people. In total, 2 million
people worked increative industries.Researchers also analyzed the creativesector’s exports and the effect of
the recession. Since 2007, thesector’s economic impact slumped and had not rebounded by 2011. Between1998
and 2006, its share of GDP ranged from 3.5 to 3.7 percent, butresearchers found the arts suffered more than
the overall economy duringthe Great Recession.Exports of arts and culture have rebounded,though. A 10-year
trend of deficits was reversed beginning in 2008, andby 2011, the U.S. exported $10.4 billion more arts and
culturalcommodities than it imported. Jewelry, silverware, movies and videoservices were the biggest
exports. The country as a whole, though, hasbeen running a trade deficit.Analysts defined arts and
culturaloutput based on creative artistic activity and the goods and servicesproduced by it or used to
support it. They also included theconstruction of buildings to house creative industries.
Beyondentertainment and advertising, the analysis included independentartists, broadcasting, publishing of
books, magazines and newspapers anddesign and architectural services.The analysis will be updated each year,
next in fall 2014 to include 2012 data.___National Endowment for the Arts: http://arts.gov/U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://bea.gov/___Follow Brett Zongker on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat .Copyright 2013
The Associated Press. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten
orredistributed.

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