Abstract

The global situation of economic crisis is also an opportunity to reflect on the evaluation tools used for cultural activities. From one side, especially the economic impact analyses are crucial to assess the economical effects of the cultural activities in order to show the benefits on a local society; from the other one - due to the lack of other kinds of evaluation - they risk to focus the attention only on the economic dimension, hiding all the other cultural and social dimensions. This can't be considered a «specific fault» of the analytic tool, but an emerging effect of the attention in time of crisis on the economical aspects connected with the difficulties of measuring the cultural and social impact. Focusing on the Turin case, after the Olympic Games, we have to say that although the strategy of investing in culture produced expected economical impacts, positive and measurable effects, there is still a lack of legitimacy for the public investment in culture, still considered a sort of «luxury good» to be cut in hard times. Nevertheless, it's difficult to maintain that transition toward a knowledge society can be totally managed without any attention for the cultural sector. Future challenges will require more complex and adequate tools to evaluate the role of cultural activities in the development process, to show the interaction with cultural and social components. In this case the economic evaluation will obtain again the right place, without the risk of reducing «the whole» to a single part, or to be the only measurable aspect to evaluate in the decision making process.