The introductory chapter looks at public funding in the light of the prevalent financial laws and in particular the EU Stability Pact. Bodo describes the pitfalls of gathering statistics on cultural expenditure, especially due to the unreliability of regional statistics after the year 2000. Alessandro Leon presents the proposals of the Commission, established in 2006, to incite private investment to culture; the first report of the Commission is included in the Documentation section.

Of special interest are the two articles which set out to measure the economic impact of specific cultural events: the Notte bianca, a kind of museum night in Rome, and the film festival in Valladolid.

Worth attention in the remaining journal: the argument on heritage communication (Isman).