Alessandro Crociata, Chiara Burlina (p)

This paper aims to understand how Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs) firms exhibit performance differentials considering not only firm-level variables, but also economic complexity and regional characteristics. Previous literature highlights the role of CCIs to foster economic and regional development, but just very few studies analyse the direct impact on firm performance. Based on Italian firm level data for the period 2008-2016, we select those firms belonging to the CCI sectors, following the definition of the Guide to Eurostat culture statistics (2018). Firm performance is proxied by the growth rate of the operating margin, while economic complexity is built on employment data of the CCI sectors at NUTS 3 level, following the Hidalgo and Hausman index (2009). Moreover, we control for a set of firm and regional characteristics. To test the relation between firm performance and regional complexity, we use multilevel techniques, in addition with random effect models. Results demonstrate that economic complexity positively affect our dependent variable. Thus, the more a region is complex and diversified, the more firm will experience higher growth rates.

Lukas Danko, Pavel Bednar (p)

The concept of clusters and cluster organisations has been relevant, mainly due to initiatives to foster regional development and enhance competitiveness in the EU. Public policies for cluster development are implemented to support innovation activities with cross-sector collaboration. Those have ability to generate spill over effects in regional innovation systems. Therefore, national and regional policies are gradually inclined towards incorporating the cultural and creative industries (CCI) in regional development strategies. Simultaneously, the CCI contribute to the objectives of the EU regional policy in terms of increasing the share of small and medium-sized enterprises to achieve sustainable economic growth. Consequently, there is a call for identification and assessment of creative clusters development stages over time along with particular public policies to support smart growth. Hence, the paper addresses a research gap regarding the development of the creative clusters over time and space in relation to the responses of particular cultural and innovation policies in Central and Eastern European countries. Specifically, the CCI development has been affected by previous conditions of the centrally planned economies and subsequent transition to the market economies. Within this context, the aim is twofold. First, to identify and explain the interaction between the space-time development trajectories of the CCI; second, to increase awareness of the CCI in cultural and innovation policies in Slovakia as an example of the post-socialist country. Thus, the paper employs exploratory spatial data analysis techniques in order to address time-space development trajectory of the CCI in Slovakia from 1993 to 2016, concerning cultural and innovation policies and their implementation over time. The quantitative analysis identifies spatial patterns of fundamental clusters that are associated with the neoclassical and quantitative concepts of the regional development theories. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of economic activities with respect to the path development concept in terms of related variety is identified – resulting in resilience along with public policies supporting the creative economy. In addition, empirical findings provide an insight into the transition from the low-road to high-road development following cultural and innovation based policies in Slovakia. Hence, the development of the CCI in the country reflects the governance and its aim towards smart specialisation in order to enhance local competitiveness through creative and innovative. In spite of the fact that the findings describe the specific condition in Slovakia, there are certain policy implications for the other Visegrad Group countries, namely Czechia, Poland, and Hungary.

Adriana Carolina Pinate (p), Alessandro Crociata (p)

Creative and cultural industries (CCIs) has been more and more defined as a driving factor of economic growth and local development. The paradigm of creative city become a mantra for several policymakers within a spread regeneration process fuelled by the so called post-industrial transition. Since the majority of the debate has been focused on urban systems, minor attention has been paid to small and non metropolitan centres. In that light, the Italian CCIs system provides an interesting case study to analyse, through employment and firm data, the evolving structure of the cultural and creative economy and highlight diverging spatial and organizational patterns of CCIs production systems in peripheral areas. We follow the Guide to Eurostat culture statistics, and its NANCE Rev. 2 code criteria, to aggregated at the municipal level cultural and creative activities within the Italian economy in the four broad groups of cultural activities: Core creative arts and cultural heritage, Cultural industries, Creative industries and Related industries. We have analysed the geographical patterns of localization of the CCIs using both: cluster analysis to group Italian CCIs according to their specialization levels, and spatial autocorrelation to detect possible spatial dependence among different sectors. Furthermore, the period of analysis corresponds to a panel data that goes from 2003 to 2017, covering the pre and post-period of economic crisis. The main novelty of the research remains in the use of a finer spatial unit, so far unexplored, over a long period of consecutive time, thus enriching the literature with a more accurate understanding of the geographical and organizational patterns of the cultural and creative economy.

Roberto Dellisanti (p), Frank van Oort

see extended abstract