The specific goals of our research are to construct and test a survey instrument that will allow a cultural map to be drawn and measured for the Chicagoland region; to explain how society makes broad choices over private and public settings; to explain how resources for public goods are allocated; and to explain how the sub-components of a particular public good are satisfied.

Our background research has provided us with the following general guidelines that will set the tenor for our survey. First, only Raymond William’s definition of culture as services, products, and property provides guidance to a social scientist or a policy maker. Second, once outside the realm of popular culture, many cultural values fall into the range of non-use values including that most elusive of all values, existence value. This may be most true for "high cultural" values. Third, preferences are more difficult to define in the arts world. Complications such as prestige, whether artists are born or made, the notion of superstars, trends, cascades, networks, motives for collecting, aesthetics, philosophy, and sociology play stronger roles than is usually assumed in analysis. Fourth, leisure time and cultural demand are complicated to understand. Time itself has unique properties in the world of arts. Sometimes no time is required for consumption. In other cases, prescribed, finite packages of time are required. Fifth, for most people, culture is one of the more valuable parts of their lives. As a whole, Culture and culture form a large portion of our national product. When time investments are included, this proportion is even larger.

The current survey will measure individuals’ monetary and time allocations across a full spectrum of behaviors: non-cultural consumption, cultural consumption, non-cultural time expenditure, cultural time expenditure, time devoted to non-cultural public goods, time devoted to cultural public goods, non-cultural contributions, and cultural contributions

We also, for the first time we know of, are going to pursue the question of why people do what they do in the area of culture. Utilizing Ralph Perry’s General Theory of Value, we will explore the roles of morality, religion, art, science, economics, politics, law, and custom when people make cultural decisions.

We are currently in the process of fine-tuning the final structure of the large "tree of choices" that is the central core of our survey. We will then convert this tree into a computer program so that the survey can be conducted by an individual using a computer screen. The tree structure is large and complicated; this may be the most complicated survey instrument ever developed, yet we aim to keep it both efficient and engaging.

Extensive pre-testing of the survey instrument is planned over the winter of 2001-2002. Pre-testing will be done by utilizing paid respondents who agree to complete a test instrument and then discuss their reactions to the survey instrument and process.

We are at an exciting period in the project’s development. Much new ground has been intellectually broken. We have combined a series of diverse ideas from the social sciences. We have solved most of the problems associated with the large scope of the study. Ultimately, the results of this work promise to open many new and important windows regarding Chicago, the United States, and our common culture.

What value do Americans attach to exhibitions of visual art? To the publication of novels and short stories? To the production of handicrafts and the presentation of grand opera? Concrete answers to questions like these would significantly improve the capacity of cultural policy makers to nurture cultural programs and allocate resources toward a more vibrant and accessible mix of cultural opportunities. Currently, however, we do not possess sufficient information of this sort to support effective decision-making in the field.

In response to this lack of information, some economists have begun adapting a survey methodology called the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), already in use to gauge the public’s willingness to pay for such environmental goods as the preservation of species and the cleanup of toxic waste. CVM studies have helped resolve tenacious conflicts over whether to preserve or allow the economic development of environmental resources.[1] The attraction of this method is that it produces information about what the people who are affected actually want, not based on what a few vested interests desire.  CVM gives better information about the desires of the public, and that helps policymakers make better decisions about how to allocate funds. 

Until now, CVM methodology has been applied for the most part to the measurement of the value of environmental goods, but recently it has also been applied to the study of other public goods such as arts and culture. Just as people value pristine environments or rare species that they will never use or even directly observe, people value cultural goods whether or not they use or participate in them. If the public enjoys certain cultural resources for free, CVM can help determine how much these goods are actually worth to the public. Recent CVM cultural policy studies have dealt with the value of parts of the cultural heritage. [2] Our research, which examines the entire spectrum of cultural activities, suggests that CVM could be useful for measuring public support for a much wider range of culture than previously thought. The implications of this study are far-reaching and merit extended discussion and debate.

CVM promises to clarify the real value the American public assigns to cultural activities and products. What is needed now is (1) the development of reliable and manageable instruments that build on established CVM survey methods to yield good data on the value attached to various cultural products and programs; and (2) a research agenda for CVM within the cultural realm—a set of broad agreements about which cultural goods to examine and the range of prospective applications of findings that might result.

This will require the participation of every major constituency having a stake in the results. Arts policy makers in government, philanthropy, and cultural institutions in every major artistic domain must work in concert with policy researchers to develop strong methods and protocols, determine research priorities, and identify ways decision-makers in the cultural realm can most effectively use the findings. Such a dialogue must also fully address the concerns of those who worry that findings will be misused to support only those cultural forms that already enjoy broad public support in the marketplace.

To bring these stakeholders together to explore these topics in depth, we convened a conference on February 1 - 2, 2002. This conference gathered culture and economics researchers with policymakers and arts advocates from a range of cultural and political contexts.

Selected papers from the conference(s) may be published in a volume edited by Don Coursey, Lawrence Rothfield, Faculty Director of Cultural Policy Program, and Doug Noonan, Ph.D. candidate in the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies.

Go to the CVM and Culture Conference site.

1. For an overview of the theory and its applications in well-known environmental conflicts, see Chapter 6 of "Ecosystem Valuation" at http://cbl.umces.edu/~dkingweb/contingent_valuation.htm.

2. For instance, Hansen, T. B.  "The Willingness-to-Pay for the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen as a Public Good."  Journal of Cultural Economics 21 (1997): 1-28; Papandrea, F. "Willingness to Pay for Domestic Television Programming." Journal of Cultural Economics 23 (1999): 147-164; Santagata, W., and G. Signorello.  "Contingent Valuation of a Cultural Public Good and Policy Design:  The Case of ‘Napoli Musei Aperti’."  Journal of Cultural Economics 24 (2000): 181-204.