The Making of Cultural Policy: A European Perspective

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rate of depreciation and wear and tear of the collection EQUALS
opportunity rate of return (the market rate of interest) minus
subsidies for the collection from local or national governments.

If there is an interested and fee-paying public, it may pay to exhibit items. Otherwise, it may be better to
store them. Since curators have a strong incentive to use funds on storage and research, Frey (2000,
Chapter 3) argues for increasing incentives for collection mobility (nice for regional museums with lesser
collections), regulated sales of objects and exhibitions. The opportunity costs, roughly 1 billion euro at a
5 per cent interest rate, are much larger than the subsidies museums receive, yet they do not feature in the
cost-benefit analysis of museums, so there is little incentive to make use of valuable collections. Making
these costs transparent improves the management of museums. This highlights a potential conflict of
interest between curators who want to study and protect, and exposition managers and the public who
want the collections to be on display. Grammp (1989) notes that the public prefers to see less pictures on
a given wall area and enjoys smaller museums relatively more.

4. Valid and invalid arguments for subsidising culture

4.1 Convincing arguments

First, there is a strong case to invest in cultural awareness and cultural education of children, especially
for developing a taste for cultural experience goods that leave a lasting impression rather than instant
entertainment. It is important not to force high culture upon school children, but let them have a say in
what they want to enjoy and discuss. One possibility is to give vouchers, so children can go each year
four to six times a year to a museum, film, theatre play, dance performance, concert or opera. National
and local governments in Europe give cultural organisations special subsidies for developing special
activities for young people. For many children cultural education is their only chance to develop an
awareness of and taste for high culture. The main rationale for subsidising cultural education is that
culture is an acquired taste and an investment in the future social stock of cultural capital.

Second, as subsidised high culture is primarily enjoyed by an older, greying, white, higher
educated part of the population, there is a case for bringing high culture to the people. By bringing high
culture to public parks, pop temples, libraries, community halls, shopping precincts, etc., one can reach
out to new and more diverse audiences. The action plans of central and local governments of the UK and
the Netherlands allow for interesting experiences in the twilight zone between high and low culture.
Think of serious theatre and ballet at pop festivals, school children rapping with symphony orchestras,
pop artists from immigrant countries backed up by symphony orchestras, staging Wagner's Ring in
central parks, poetry on billboards, break-dancers working with professional dancers, etc. These action

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