Economic Impact of Popular Culture in Cali, Colombia

The term “popular culture” has not yet been clearly defined; however, there are already efforts to quantify its impact on the economy. Cusic and Faulk (2009) computed the gross domestic product of popular culture, which is divided into several economic activities in the information sector and in the arts, entertainment, and recreation sector. This article follows Cusic and Faulk’s definition to make explicit the contribution of each activity to Cali’s economy. Our results imply that the main components of popular culture in Cali are gambling and sporting activities; however, recreation also plays an important role. The gambling activities are mainly constituted by the sales of a small-bets game played on a daily basis by more than half of adults in Cali. A limitation of our approach to calculating the gross domestic product of popular culture is that we do not adopt an explicit social sciences definition. This article presents a detailed description of the industries included in the calculation of the gross domestic product of popular culture. The data presented here can be organized to present the economic impact of popular culture.