Data collection also suffers from organisational problems, lack of a systematic framework and
changes in accounting conventions. Still, the data suggest that it is wrong to focus attention on cultural
spending by national governments alone. In Finland, the Netherlands and Spain they make up only 58.6
per cent, 50.4 per cent (only 32.3 per cent if the public broadcasting bill of 732.5 euro is excluded) and
less than 28 percent, respectively of total public cultural spending. Cultural spending by the
regions/provinces and the municipalities is thus very important. In Germany with almost no federal
cultural budget this is even more the case.
Bille, Hjorth-Andersen and Gregersen (2003) describe the efforts of the Nordic Contact Group for
Cultural Policy Research to arrive at a joint Nordic common standard. They stress the difficulties in
defining what is exactly meant by cultural policy. Is it only high subsidised culture? Does it include
teaching of literature or drawing in primary schools, preservation of heritage or valued added of the pop
music industry? Apart from libraries and newspapers the Group did not arrive at a common standard for
data classification. The Group includes public spending on the creative arts, theatre, music & dance, film
& media, libraries, museum, archives, etc., but excludes public spending on cultural education, radio &
TV and capital items. With these definitions culture's share of gross domestic product during the last
quarter of a century has remained practically the same in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden,
namely 0.5-0.6 per cent. Economic growth thus leads to expansion of cultural budgets.
Little has been done to explain public cultural expenditures from a macroeconomic or political
economy perspective as done for general government spending by, for example, Alesina and Perotti
(1995). Previous studies do explain spending on particular forms of culture. For example, Krebs and
Pommerehne (1995) empirically study political and other determinants of public support for the
performing arts. Schulze and Rose (1998) study funding of the ‘Kulturorchester’ in the various regions of
Germany. Orchestras are heavily funded in Germany: 94.6 per cent of public subsidy comes from local
communities or municipalities and more than eighty per cent of orchestra funding (compared to 4 per
cent for the US and 20 per cent for Japan) comes from direct public subsidies. Germany has a very high
density of orchestras (1 for every 0.6 million citizens) compared with Great Britain (one for every 4
million citizens) and the US (one for every 1.6 million citizens). Local politicians and local circumstances
play a key role and decentralisation of culture is even anchored in the German constitution. Schulze and
Rose find that regional public funding of orchestras in Germany increases with the size of the population
in the Lander. Larger towns also have bigger orchestras, but a bigger fraction of higher educated people
surprisingly had no effect on German funding of orchestras. The level of orchestra support depends
positively on the size of the overall and the cultural budget and negatively on the level of public debt.
Schulze and Rose also find that conservative and liberal politicians tend to support classical orchestras
more than Social Democratic and Green politicians do.