Testing the Catalysts of the Romanian Creative Economy—A Panel Data Analysis Approach

Abstract

There have been several decades since the creative and cultural economy (CCE) was praised for its contributions to long-term socio-economic development and also for its sustainable approach concerning the main production factors involved by the creative industries—human intellect and talent—and cultural ones, and now, more than ever, the creative sector could be perceived as vital in facing and recovering from the several crises of recent years. In order to determine the “recipe” of a flourishing local CCE, our research continues analysing seven Romanian cities, by assessing several influential factors considered as catalysts of the CCE, such as: student populations, young populations, and local public expenditure on culture during 2008–2019 for the selected creative cities. In this paper, we will determine the connection between these catalysts of the local CCEs’ development as independent variables, and two economic dimensions, the number of employees and turnover, as the dependent variables. The determination of this correlation started by using the observation method and the method of multiple regression, but further investigation was needed, so the present paper deepens the research by approaching the panel data method. Our results prove an existing correlation between the analysed variables, some of them influencing positively, and others negatively.