Innovation in creative cities: Evidence from British small firms

Neil Lee and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

No 1422, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: Creative cities are seen as important sites for the generation of new ideas, products and processes. Yet, beyond case studies of a few high-profile cities, there is little empirical evidence on the link between local creative industries concentration and innovation. This paper addresses this gap with an analysis of around 1,300 UK SMEs. The results suggest that firms in local economies with high shares of creative industries employment are significantly more likely to introduce entirely new products and processes than firms elsewhere, but not innovations which are simply new to the firm. This effect is not exclusive to creative industries firms and seems to be largely due to firms in medium sized, rather than large, cities. The results imply that creative cities may have functional specialisations in new content creation and so firms are more innovative in them.

Keywords: Creativity; Creative Cities; Creative Industries; Cities; Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O38 R1 R11 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2014-11, Revised 2014-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cse, nep-cul, nep-ent, nep-eur, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-sbm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg1422.pdf Version November 2014 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Innovation in Creative Cities: Evidence from British Small Firms (2014)
Working Paper: Innovation in creative cities: Evidence from British small firms (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:1422

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