The creative industries have received much attention from economic geographers and others, both for their propensity to co-locate in urban settings and their potential to drive urban economic development. However, evidence on the latter is surprisingly sparse. In this paper we explore the long-term, causal impacts of the creative industries on surrounding urban economies. Adapting Moretti’s local multipliers framework, we build a new 20-year panel of UK cities, using fixed effects and a historic instrument to identify effects on non-creative firms and employment.
The creative industries have received much attention from economic geographers and others, both for their propensity to co-locate in urban settings and their potential to drive urban economic development. However, evidence on the latter is surprisingly sparse. In this paper we explore the long-term, causal impacts of the creative industries on surrounding urban economies. Adapting Moretti’s local multipliers framework, we build a new 20-year panel of UK cities, using fixed effects and a historic instrument to identify effects on non-creative firms and employment.
