Creativity over Time and Space

Guido Tabellini and Michel Serafinelli

No 12365, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Creativity is often highly concentrated in time and space, and across different domains. What explains the formation and decay of clusters of creativity? We match data on notable individuals born in Europe between the 11th and the 19th century with historical city data. The production and attraction of creative talent is associated with city institutions that protected economic and political freedoms and promoted local autonomy. Instead, indicators of local economic conditions such as city size and real wages, do not predict creative clusters. We also show that famous creatives are spatially concentrated and clustered across disciplines, that their spatial mobility has remained stable over the centuries, and that creative clusters are persistent but less than population.

Keywords: Innovation; Agglomeration; Political institutions; Immigration; Gravity; Human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J61 O10 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP12365 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Creativity over time and space (2022)
Working Paper: Creativity over Time and Space (2019)
Working Paper: Creativity over Time and Space (2019)
Working Paper: Creativity over Time and Space (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12365

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP12365

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().