More and more...artists and arts activities are perceived not only as valuable in their own right but also as important contributors to an area's economy. Especially in New York City, the cultural capital of the country and probably the world, the arts play a direct economic role through the expenditures and receipts of a variety of activities, including Broadway, Off-Broadway and non-profit theatre, museums and art galleries, opera and dance, concerts, auction houses, and motion picture and television productions. New York's cultural network is a major regional tourist attraction, and often encourages individuals and businesses to move to or to remain in the area.

For this reason, the Cultural Assistance Center and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have collaborated to study the contribution of the arts to the economy of New York City and the surrounding New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Region. Together, the two organizations bring a complement of resources to the measurement of the economic impact of the arts. The Cultural Assistance Center, a non-profit service organization established to support and promote City cultural institutions, possesses a broad knowledge of the New York arts community and its importance to the City, the State, and the rest of the nation. The Port Authority provides expertise in regional economic analysis, and has developed a specialized input-output model to measure the impact of a given activity on the regional economy.

The New York-New Jersey cultural community is a source not only of unparalleled artistic energy but also of substantial economic impact. This study has been conducted to expand our knowledge of that vibrant cultural endowment. (p. ix).

Highlights: The arts have a $5.6 billion impact on the New York City and New York-New Jersey metropolitan economy. More than $2 billion in personal income and over 117,000 jobs are generated by the arts in the metropolitan area. The arts constitute a major export industry. An estimated $1.6 billion is generated by the expenditures of visitors who come primarily or extend their stay for arts and culture and from the proceeds of touring companies which are returned to the metropolitan economy. The regional arts institutions and that proportion of their non-resident patrons who visited the area primarily for the arts together generated a total of $150 million in regional income taxes and sales taxes.

Industries which most benefit from this $5.6 billion activity, in order of importance, are: real estate, business and professional services, wholesale and retail trade, eating and drinking establishments, hotels and personal services, utilities, transportation, medical and educational services, finance and insurance. The more than 1,900 arts institutions in the region inspire and entertain an annual audience of 64 million - 13 million of whom are visitors from outside the region. The arts are a larger industry than advertising, or hotel or motel operations, or management consulting or computer and data processing services. Whole preeminent institutions in other parts of the region provide an important economic as well as cultural force in their respective communities, Manhattan is the location of the great majority of arts facilities and cultural activities.

The $5.6 billion arts industry, for the purposes of this study, comprises five major segments:

1. Non-profit institutions -- 1,580 in number - which bring us music, opera, theatre, and dance in the performing arts, museums, zoos, botanic gardens, and alternative art spaces in the visual arts, public television, film and video groups, research libraries and literary magazines, art service organizations, and ethnic and community arts activities. Together these groups contribute $1.31 billion to the metropolitan area economy.
   
   
2. Art galleries and auction houses have a total impact of $360 million. This excludes the value of art bought and sold.
   
   
3. Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres generate a total impact of $480 million; Broadway road companies contribute an additional $170 million to this economy.
   
   
4. Local film and TV production activities, including commercials, cable and video production, result in another $2 billion to the region.
   
   
5. Visitors to the region who come here explicitly for cultural offerings not only support the industry directly by their attendance, but add an additional $1.3 billion to the economy annually in other expenditures during their stay. ( p. 5-6).

CONTENTS
Preface.
List of tables.

Chapter 1. Summary of major findings.

A. Introduction.
B. Highlights
C. Non-profit cultural institutions.
D. Art galleries and auction houses.
E. Commercial theatre.
F. Motion picture and television production
G. Visitors to the arts.
H. The arts as an export industry.
 I. Linkages to other industries
J. Methodology.
    Development of expenditure data.
    Economic Impact analysis.

Chapter 2. Scope and methodology.

A. Scope of the study
B. Defining the arts as an industry.
C. Economic impact analysis.
D. Data collection.
    Nonprofit cultural institutions.
    Art galleries and auction houses.
    Commercial theatre Motion picture and television production.
    Audience surveys.
    Qualitative analysis.
    Consistency of expenditure data.
E. Design of the report.

Chapter 3. Economic characteristics of the arts in the New York-New Jersey
                Metropolitan region.

A. Non-profit cultural institutions. 
    Economics of non-profit cultural institutions.
B. Art galleries and auction houses. 
    Expenditure patterns.
C. Commercial theatre.
    Broadway.
    Commercial Off-Broadway.
    The road.
D. Motion picture and television production.
    Television and commercials.
    Motion picture production.
E. Summary of direct expenditures of arts institutions.

Chapter 4. The market for the arts in the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan region.

A. The regional audience.
B. The visitor audience.
C. The market for the New York-New Jersey region arts on tour.

Chapter 5. Economic impacts of the arts.

A. Impact of institutional expenditures.
    Non-profit cultural institutions.
    Art galleries and auction houses.
    Commercial theatre.
    Motion picture and television production.
B. Impact of the expenditures of arts motivated visitors.
C. Total economic impacts.

Chapter 6. Qualitative investigations of the arts as an industry.

A. Local impacts of cultural institutions.
    Soho.
    Lincoln Center.
    The Bronx zoo and the New York Botanical Garden.
    The Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
    The Newark Museum.
    Newark Symphony Hall.
    The Brooklyn Academy of Music.
B. Individual Artists.
    Employment and the Regional Labor Pool.
    People employed by arts institutions.
    Arts Education.

Chapter 7. Economic Implications.

A. The agglomeration effect.
B. The export component of the arts as an industry.
C. The arts as a regional promoter.

Appendices.
Bibliography.
List of Personal, Telephone and mail interviews.

The Cultural Assistance Center and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have collaborated to study the contribution of the arts to the economy of New York City and the surrounding New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Region.