Creative Industries: Business & Employment in the Arts reports continue to offer a research-based approach to understanding the scope and importance of the arts to the nation’s economy using Dun and Bradstreet data. While most economic impact studies of the arts have focused on the nonprofit sector (such as our own Arts and Economic Prosperity studies), Creative Industries is the first national study that encompasses both the nonprofit and for-profit arts industries. Reports available for US Congressional districts, states and in customized formats.
Economic Impact
Time and Money: Using Federal Data to Measure the Value of Performing Arts Activities
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it,” said American author Henry David Thoreau more than 150 years ago. Time and Money: Using Federal Data to Measure the Value of Performing Arts Activities is a new research note from the National Endowment for the Arts that looks at the value of the arts in three ways: time spent on arts activities; organizational revenue and expenses; and direct consumer spending. A particular focus on performing arts data provides consistency across these three measurements.
Forks in the Road: The Many Paths of Arts Alumni
The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) at Indiana University’s Center for Postsecondary Research addresses the previously unanswered question of what happens to alumni of performing and visual arts in its report, Forks in the Road: The Many Paths of Arts Alumni. Stereotypes and misconceptions abounded about what these graduates were doing, with one of the most common being that they are unable to find work in their desired field and therefore are forced to take jobs outside of their desired field. After receiving 13,581 responses, SNAAP was able to dispel that myth and provide a clearer picture of the activities of these graduates.
The Role of the Arts in Educating America for Great Leadership and Economic Strength
The 2010 National Arts Policy Roundtable, The Role of the Arts in Educating America for Great Leadership and Economic Strength, focused on the role of the arts in answering the national imperative to improve education in order to meet the global challenges we face. This report is a summary of the findings of this convening at the Sundance Institute in September 2010.
Artist Employment Projections Through 2018
For the first time, the National Endowment for the Arts looks at future job prospects for a variety of artist occupations in Artist Employment Projections Through 2018. This report examines the projected growth rate for artist occupations through 2018, over which time artist occupations will increase by 11 percent, compared with an overall increase in the labor force of 10 percent.
Arts and the GDP: Value Added by Selected Cultural Industries
Cultural industries are economic powerhouses and states have the data to prove it, according to a new analysis from the National Endowment for the Arts. Drawing on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Arts and the GDP: Value Added by Selected Cultural Industries is a new NEA research note that examines the value added by three selected cultural industries: (1) performing arts, sports, and museums; (2) motion pictures and sound recording; and (3) publishing (including software).
Combined, these three cultural industries contributed a total of $278.4 billion to the U.S. economy in 2009. The NEA research note also looks at dollars and jobs added to individual state economies by these cultural industries.
See Press Release
See REPORT (PDF)

