The Digital Creative Economy, Trade and Artificial Intelligence: Prospects for Developing Economies

Keith Nurse

CDP Background Papers from United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs

Abstract: In the past three decades the creative economy—broadly defined as the arts, media, design, software, and related cultural goods, services, intellectual property and data—has shifted from the narrow confines of the cultural industries into the digital creative economy which is a key driver of the contemporary knowledge economy and a rising share of global GDP and employment. After a brief overview the paper analyses the drivers of growth in the digital creative economy and assesses the participation of the developing world in creative trade. The emerging role of generative AI is then evaluated against rising concerns about a widening digital divide. The paper concludes with a discussion about the strategic requirements for improved participation under the rubric of creative entrepreneurship and argues that developing economies need to expand investment in industrial upgrading to achieve enhanced trade performance.

Keywords: Digitalization; Artificial Intelligence; Digital Creative Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O1 O2 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:une:cpaper:065

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