Resources
- Stay informed about BEA developments by reading The BEA Wire, signing up for BEA’s email subscription service, or following @BEA_News on X.
- The time series of detailed annual statistics for 1998 through 2023 are available at “Arts and Culture.”
- Access BEA data by registering for BEA’s Data Application Programming Interface.
- For more on BEA’s statistics, see our online journal, the Survey of Current Business.
- For upcoming economic indicators, see BEA’s news release schedule.
- For complete information on the sources and methods used to estimate arts and cultural production, see BEA’s arts and cultural production methodology.
Definitions
“Culture” in the context of input-output tables for the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account can be defined in a variety of ways, including language, traditions, beliefs, and values. For this account, arts and cultural production is defined narrowly to include creative artistic activity—the goods and services produced by it, the goods and services produced in support of it, and the construction of buildings in which it takes place. The input-output table is a valuable tool to identify and estimate the value of the “creative chain.” This chain captures the economic value of the creation of a cultural product (composing a symphony) from its production (the performance being recorded in a studio), distribution (by various modes), and final consumption (by the listener).
Arts and cultural production output consists of all domestically produced goods and services purchased (for example, movie tickets or design services).
Arts and cultural production employment consists of all wage and salary jobs in which the workers are engaged in the production of arts and cultural production-related goods and services.
Arts and cultural production compensation consists of the remuneration (including wages and salaries as well as benefits, such as employer contributions to pension and health funds) payable to employees in return for their arts and cultural production-related work during a given year.
Arts and cultural production value added consists of output less intermediate consumption (for example, costumes rented by performing arts companies or printing of the program for the show).
Gross domestic product (GDP) is the value of the goods and services produced by the nation’s economy less the value of the goods and services used up in production. GDP is also equal to the sum of personal consumption expenditures, gross private domestic investment, net exports of goods and services, and government consumption expenditures and gross investment.
Core arts and cultural production industries are originators of ideas and content associated with the creation of arts and culture. Supporting industries produce and disseminate arts and cultural commodities.
Current-dollar estimates are valued in the prices of the period when the transactions occurred—that is, at “market value.” Also referred to as “nominal estimates” or “current-price estimates.”
Real values are inflation-adjusted estimates—that is, estimates that exclude the effects of price changes.
Statistical conventions
Quantities, or “real” measures, and prices are expressed as index numbers with a specified reference year equal to 100 (currently 2017). Quantity and price indexes are calculated using a Fisher chain-weighted formula that incorporates weights from two adjacent periods (quarters for quarterly data and annuals for annual data). “Real” dollar series are calculated by multiplying the published quantity index by the current-dollar value in the reference year and then dividing by 100. Percent changes calculated from chained-dollar levels and quantity indexes are conceptually the same; any differences are due to rounding.
Chained-dollar values are not additive, because the relative weights for a given period differ from those of the reference year. In tables that display chained-dollar values, the value of the "not allocated by industry" line reflects the difference between the first line and the sum of the most detailed lines. For the real value added by industry table, this value also reflects differences in source data used to estimate GDP by industry and the expenditures measure of real GDP.