“Creative industries led by Hollywood account for about $504 billion, or at least 3.2 percent of U.S. goods and services,” writes Brett Zongker in an Associated Press story on Thursday (12/5) that has been widely picked up. “On Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Endowment for the Arts will release the first-ever estimates of the creative sector’s contributions to U.S. gross domestic product based on 2011 data, the most recent figures available.… Sunil Iyengar, the endowment’s research director, said the yardstick … drew on figures from Hollywood, the advertising industry, cable TV production, broadcasting, publishing, performing arts and other areas…. Analysts said … the arts and culture sector outpaced the U.S. travel and tourism industry, which was 2.8 percent of GDP in 2011, based on the federal estimate. That finding surprised even the researchers…. The total output from arts and cultural production, another measure of economic activity, was $916 billion in 2011, analysts found.… Researchers also analyzed the creative sector’s exports and the effect of the recession.… Researchers found the arts suffered more than the overall economy during the Great Recession. Exports of arts and culture have rebounded, though.… The analysis will be updated each year, next in fall 2014 to include 2012 data.”
Posted December 6, 2013
