The Arts Endowment has been involved, financially or otherwise, in most of these efforts to increase the supply of economic data on the arts. However, in the past two years, the involvement has been more deliberate and systematic. The study that this paper reports is part of the new effort to assist the Arts Endowment in making decisions about the Endowment's future role in the development and improvement of economic data on arts and cultural institutions.

Our task was to systematically review and evaluate all existing sources of data of nationwide scope and recommend action to correct the deficiencies revealed. A crude summary of the adequacy of the existing data available to users (that is, excluding data buried in agency files), using criteria such as coverage of the universe, data items included, and continuity over time, is found in Table 1. In our view, there is a modicum of adequacy (and not much more than a modicum) only for the large non-profit traditional performing arts organizations. Otherwise, the data available to users range from sketchy (e.g. for the commercial theatre) to nonexistent (e.g. for nontraditional performing arts). (p. 40-41).

The Arts Endowment has been involved, financially or otherwise, in most of these efforts to increase the supply of economic data on the arts. However, in the past two years, the involvement has been more deliberate and systematic. The study that this paper reports is part of the new effort to assist the Arts Endowment in making decisions about the Endowment's future role in the development and improvement of economic data on arts and cultural institutions.