Cultural policy is often identified with the distribution of monetary subsidies to organisations active in the various areas of the cultural system. Although financial support is needed by cultural organisations, whose direct revenues do not manage to fully cover operational costs, public action includes many layers of intervention, from regulation to capacity building, from infrastructural endowment to technological access. The seminal book Performing Arts. The Economic Dilemma, unanomously considered the founding cornerstone of cultural economics, offers Baumol’s Law—otherwise labelled as ‘the law of unbalanced growth’—as the most convincing justification of public support aimed at cultural organisations. Although questionable and somehow controversial, Baumol’s Law managed to focus upon budget weakness as the crucial factor for the survival of the cultural system. This ended up requiring criteria, mechanisms and tools aimed at structuring the decisions related to the selected recipients and the amount of public subsidies. The prevailing approach adopted to examine cultural projects and programs is based on peer evaluation, which implies a non-hostile view on the part of experts and above all a clear censorship in associating the subjectively perceived quality to the amount of subsidies given. Aesthetical evaluations end up widening the gap between strong and weak, as well as between consolidated and emerging recipients. The innovative experience of ad hoc indicators based upon action and impact, adopted by an Italian regional government, is described and discussed.