With regard to financing of culture, the most obvious question is how much is spent on it from the budget. It needs an explanation, therefore, why BO tackles the issue in its third year of operation only. First: exactly because of the obviousity, such analysis is available at various other places, the best known being Chapters 6 of the country profiles of the Compendium of the Council of Europe / EricArts. Second: no matter how obvious the question may be, the answer is burdened with a great number of methodological difficulties and pitfalls.

Our own survey began by a request coming from the Hungarian Ministry of Culture to do research on the cultural expenditures of the Hungarian governments between 1991 and 2001, and compare these to the equivalent data of three selected Hungarian cities. This small section of our findings tells about the central budgets.

Indirectly linked to cultural budgets are - since all aspects of culture are related to public budgets - the data on cultural employment .