Cultural Strategies and Public Value Creation: Empirical Evidence

In recent years there has been a growing belief that cultural policies are very important drivers of the public value creation process. Many scholars show that cultural policies can generate social, economic, and political advantages. However, until now the importance of cultural policies in the social and economic growth of a country has been justified mainly by means of theoretical analysis or case studies. Little research supported by empirical evidence has been done on this subject. Moreover, analysis in international contexts is very rare. This article aims to: 1) determine these factors with reference to a European context and, 2) investigate the relationship between the main elements of cultural policies and a set of social, economic, and political variables without disregarding the context of each country analyzed. The research was carried out in 39 European countries by means of statistical methods. Findings, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.