Gifts of the Muse

This study offers a new framework for understanding how the arts create private and public value, highlights the importance of the arts' intrinsic benefits, and identifies how both instrumental and intrinsic benefits are created. During the past decade, arts advocates have relied on an instrumental approach to the benefits of the arts in arguing for support of the arts. This report evaluates these arguments and asserts that a new approach is needed. This new approach offers a more comprehensive view of how the arts create private and public value, underscores the importance of the arts' intrinsic benefits, and links the creation of benefits to arts involvement.