Roberto Dellisanti (p)

Oto Hudec

At the intersection of the major trends that are running over the economy, Cultural Industries (CCIs) are on the edge of these processes, being largely affected by new technologies without losing their distinctive human trait: creativity. Specifically, countless are the opportunities offered by new technologies for these activities that could potentially create new experiences for a larger plethora of users, located anywhere and connected through the innovative digital platforms. In fact, new technologies are rapidly changing the way in which firms and industries make profits, intercepting the new consumers' demand through emerging platforms such the Metaverse (JPMorgan, 2022).
These new trends will also change the geography of economic activity in a way that we are not yet able to foresee, with CCIs as possible trailblazer of the change. Will centripetal forces continue to attract the creatives in urban areas? Will creative functions move out from city centres due to the new technological advancements?
In order to be ready to study and discuss the novel spatial trends in CCIs, it is important to have a clearer idea of the territorial determinants behind their clustering. The geographical pattern of CCIs has been widely investigated, describing an interesting agglomerated distribution especially in favour of large urban areas (Power, 2011). They concentrate in space due to classical agglomeration economies (Lorenzen & Frederiksen, 2007) but also due to specific factors attracting the cultural and creative workforce (Lazzeretti et al., 2012; Sánchez Serra, 2016). This work attempts to enrich this debate, using two distinctive features of CCIs as starting point, namely their strong and heterogeneous capacity to innovate and the creative value chain.
These two dimensions will allow to outline a theoretical taxonomy suitable to better understand the reasons behind clustering. The idea is that according to their capacity to innovate and according to the industrial relationships, CCIs require different territorial conditions to cluster. The preliminary results seem to confirm this idea, highlighting different agglomeration forces operating on CCIs. The innovative capacity explains the difference between static and dynamic agglomeration economies. Conversely, different linkages between CCIs and the rest of the economy, proxy for the creative process, counterpose localization and urbanization economies.

Andrea Porta (p), Josep-Maria Arauzo-Carod, Giovanna Segre

Roberto Dellisanti

This paper investigates the spatial distribution and agglomeration of Cultural and Creative Industries in inner peripheries, focusing on the specificities of the Italian context and the territorial classification introduced by the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI).
The starting point is the growing interest in inner peripheries and its link with culture, emerged in particular from two main connected dynamics: specific policies at the European level (see the Cohesion Policy 2021-2027) and national level with the SNAI aimed at bridging the economic development and services gap between urban centres and inner peripheries; the depopulation dynamics that are characterising peripheral areas in the last 30 years and the need to understand how to invert this trend; the (temporary?) attention on quality of life and sustainability offered by rural areas and inner peripheries emerged during the Covid19 pandemic and the related questioning of urbanisation in response to the risk of crowding and the need of more green and nice living spaces. These dynamics have in common a strong relation with cultural and natural resources considered as capital for local sustainable economic development for the first; possible strategic field to attract new inhabitants, creating development occasions, for the second; precondition and driver of a good living environment for the third.
The main source of information used for the analysis is the dataset on Italian firms and establishments managed by IRCrES, the Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth of the National Research Council of Italy, which contains detailed information on sectors of activity, structure and location of the establishments. The applied methodologies include Local Spatial Autocorrelation Analysis (LISA) and mapping of the establishments and employees at the municipalities scale, drawing a comprehensive picture of the CCIs and their potential role for the development of Italian inner peripheries.

Slavomír Ondoš, Žofia Sinčáková, Oto Hudec (p)

Andrea Porta

Higher economic complexity is not only related to diversification, but also to the sophistication of production and the localisation of the manifold and unique knowledge that drives economic development. Slovakia has 79 districts, which is a reasonably fine level, and enables more detailed comparisons and interpretations when using the Economic Complexity Index (Hidalgo and Hausmann, 2009). From a different perspective, sectors are contrasted by product complexity index scores. The indices confirm the dominance of agglomeration and the disadvantages of the more peripheral regions, but at the same time reveal surprising dynamics in 2008-2020 and hidden deficiencies also in regions considered more developed. The analytical framework gives the threefold view across district, industry and time as a way of predicting future trends.
However, the main research question is focused on the creative industries and their importance and suitability as a targeted specialisation. Košice, the second-largest city in Slovakia, implemented the European Capital of Culture project in 2013 with an attempt to depart from the original industrial path with a strong emphasis on the advancement of the creative industries. The creative industries have come to the forefront of the city's social progress, significantly increasing its attractiveness for the life of the creative class. However, in the short span of less than a decade, the potential product complexity of the creative industries has so far only partially contributed to increased economic performance.