Creativity and local economic development: The role of synergy among different talents

Abstract

The role of creativity in local economic development has been widely discussed. The evidence on this linkage is, however, mixed. This work tries to highlight the nexus by taking into consideration a new aspect, that is, the multidimensional nature of creativity and the potential synergic and complementary effects of creative talents of different nature. The merging of talents is, indeed, a source of original, complex and synergic ideas which are at the basis of the positive relation between creativity and local development. The work addresses this issue conceptually and proves the expectations through an empirical application on Italian provinces (NUTS 3)

On the performance of creative industries: Evidence from Mexican metropolitan areas

“…In contrast, most of the local governments facing higher poverty levels, and probably less efficient creative industries, have been increasing public investments for poverty reduction. In line with the literature (Capello & Lenzi, ; Cerisola, ; UNCTAD, ; ), this study found population density to have a positive correlation with TE, and therefore, high populated metropolitan areas may offer highly skilled individuals that promote innovation.…”

“…Industrial intensity represents the share of workers employed in the manufacturing sector. This variable is often included in the RGM literature (Boix-Domenech & Soler-Marco, 2017;Cerisola, 2016;Lee, 2014) to control for the industrial structure. Population density is a proxy for urbanization economies.…”

“…Population density is a proxy for urbanization economies. As documented by several studies (Capello & Lenzi, 2013;UNCTAD, 2008UNCTAD, , 2010, the creative industries tend to cluster and concentrate in big cities, often characterized by agglomeration economies, positive economies and easy face to face interaction (Cerisola, 2016). Finally, as the overall performance of any industry can be correlated to the effective enforcement of laws, the number of total reported crimes in each metropolitan area is included as a control variable.…”

“…Although there are many disputes about the definition of the creative sector, the common denominator of these industries is that ideas, skill and talent rather than physical capital are their key attributes. The impacts that creative industries could deliver on economic growth has been addressed by a number of scholars (Cerisola, ; Lee, ; Stam, de Jong, & Marlet, ). More recently, some others have looked at the performance of the sector at both the firm‐level (Castiglione, Infante, & Zieba, ; Kourtit & Nijkamp, ; Pieri & Zaninotto, ) and the regional‐level (Kourtit & Nijkamp, ; Zeng, Hu, & Su, ).…”

“…The creative class is now an important sector of the economy not only in developed countries(Boix-Domenech & Soler-Marco, 2017;Stam et al 2008) but also in developing economies(UNCTAD, 2010). Previous work, focusing on the performance of the creative sector, has either carried out a firm-level(Castiglione et al 2018;Kourtit & Nijkamp, 2013) or a regional-level(Cerisola, 2016;Stam et al 2008;Zeng et al 2016) approach. In this work however, it is used a more ''granular'' framework.…”