Creative workers and regional development. Towards a classification of spatial effects

Using data from the Labour Force Surveys in the 2001-2008 period, this paper analyses the evolution in the distribution of “creative professions†as a share of regional workforces (at NUTS2 level), and correlates it with the evolution of p.c. GDP, in different time periods, to test the hypothesis of causal relationship between the two variables, in either direction. It then proposes a regional classification based on the spatial clustering of these effects, which highlights the existence of “national effects†and the relevance of geographical specificities.