Understanding the full value of culture: Theory into policy

While a large body of research has identified immense non-monetisable value in cultural activities, the economic benefits of cultural activities remain the predominant focus of cultural policy. This paper argues that this is in large part because the cultural sector does not yet have the tools to articulate and incorporate the qualitative nature of “intrinsic” cultural values into economic decision-making processes. Reviewing a thematic analysis of extant literature that identified an ecology of the values of cultural activity across seven domains: aesthetic, educational, financial, personal, sociocultural, technical, and wellbeing, it adds environment as an eighth domain and presents two tools that can be used to holistically identify the qualitative and quantitative values inherent in cultural activities, and to bring these values to the policy table.