ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to follow attempts to both define and develop empirical measures that may act as an evidential base for policy making in the area of the cultural industries. Specifically, the chapter will focus on the shift from a national to a regional basis of cultural industries policy making. The first step in this process in the United Kingdom (U.K.) was the production of the Creative Industries Mapping Document (DCMS, 1998). This document sought to use secondary sources to record the contribution of the cultural industries1 to the whole U.K. economy. Remarkably, few states2 had thought of carrying out such an exercise before; and certainly none were prepared to publicize the outcomes so widely. The four headline statistics from this report were as follows: that the cultural industries employed close to 1.4 million persons, which represented 5 percent of the total U.K. workforce at the time; revenues from the cultural industries was in the excess of £60bn; they contributed £7.5bn to export earnings (excluding intellectual property); and value added (net of inputs) was £25bn, which significantly was 4 percent of U.K. GDP, and in excess of any (traditional) manufacturing industry.
