Government grants to private cultural institutions-The effects of a change in the italian legislation

In Italy, the Regular Grant is the most important subsidy to private cultural institutions. Since 1996, law 534/96 has regulated its provision. This law greatly improves on the previous legislation, as it redefines the prerequisites to become a recipient and specifies performance indicators to which the size of the grant must be tied. This paper examines the effects of the introduction of the new law, the characteristics of the government choice process and the redistribution profile of these grants using a variety of estimating techniques on official data gathered for the purpose. © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.