Author: Kyros, Peter N. Jr.

Publication Year: 1981

Media Type: Book

Summary:

Paper presented at Conference on the Economic Impact of the Arts, sponsored by Cornell University, Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, held in Ithaca, New York, May 27-28, 1981.

Abstract:

Paper presented at Conference on the Economic Impact of the Arts, sponsored by Cornell University, Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, held in Ithaca, New York, May 27-28, 1981.

It has fallen to me to put a concluding word to this anthology and it is not a task which I approach lightly. We have heard experts and practitioners describe the ways in which the arts contribute to our economic life. We have had explained to us the models by which economists measure the contributions of the arts to our economic well-being, with the caveats that sound economic analysis requires. We have been instructed by those who have done it in the spiritual and intellectual excitement - as well as the material wealth - that the arts can create. If, as Jacob Bronowski observed, man's ascent has been a struggle between science and magic, the two have at least made their peace in this meeting.

And for all that it is a peace with which none of us is yet perfectly comfortable. All of us - artists, economists, trustees, contributors, government officials - all of us have surrounded our economic views with worried qualifications. In summing up our works here, it is to this sense of unease that I wish to speak first and most directly. The topic which we have explored - economic development and the arts - did not exist ten years ago. And yet today a tremendous amount of energy and originality is devoted to this equation. Having listened to some of the answers, we should now ask ourselves, in the best literary and academic tradition what, after all, is the question? The question is certainly not the easy one. Do the arts contribute to our economic life? Of course they do. We know that, and we have proven it. We need to prove it many times more and, as our experts have told us, we need to develop better tools and methods of proof. 
(p. 94)

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Economic Impact