espanolEste trabajo intenta dar una respuesta a las siguientes preguntas: ?Existen razones economicas que justifiquen el apoyo publico al sector cultural? ?Que formas puede adoptar dicho apoyo? ?Se puede conceptualizar y medir el valor economico de la cultura? El autor indica que las fallas de mercado son una condicion necesaria pero no suficiente para la intervencion publica, en la medida en que tambien existen fallas de Estado. Asimismo, plantea que la forma que adopte la intervencion afectara los resultados de la politica cultural, incluido el acceso de la poblacion a diversas expresiones culturales. Finalmente, el autor critica las medidas de actividad economica como indicativas del valor economico de los bienes culturales y describe un enfoque metodologico consistente con medidas de bienestar social. Ese enfoque es finalmente ilustrado con su aplicacion a un bien cultural concreto: la red de bibliotecas publicas de Chile. EnglishThis paper tries to answer the following questions: Are there economic reasons that justify public support to the cultural sector? What are the possible forms that support can take? And, can the economic value of culture be defined and measured? The author argues that the existence of market failures is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for government intervention, as Government failures can also exist. He also proposes that the way in which intervention takes place will affect the outcomes of cultural policy, including the population’s access to different cultural expressions. Finally, he argues that common measures of economic activity are very imperfect indicators of economic value in the case of cultural goods, and describes a method consistent with broader social welfare measures. That approach is illustrated by a concrete example: the Chilean network of public libraries.