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Conceptualizing how to define and measure the economic impacts of the arts is part of a larger debate regarding intrinsic versus instrumental impacts that extends into other sectors of the economy. This broader context is addressed, identifying three different types of economic impact, together with very specific methodological errors to avoid in order to generate defensible results for the very prevalent short-term spending impacts. Different impact methodologies and their inter-relationships are identified, and the debate regarding ex ante versus econometric ex post methodologies is addressed in detail, with elaborations of specific examples in sports versus the arts. The distinction between incremental regional impact analysis and other approaches, such as census-based national income accounting (satellite accounts), is identified, together with short-cut methods such as online economic impact calculators.
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Bruce A. Seaman (2020) studied this question.