Creative Employment and Jet Set Cities: Disentangling Causal Effects

Abstract

Whether people follow jobs or jobs follow people has been a central question in urban economics for decades. Because urban leaders increasingly focus on creative jobs as a growth strategy and because temporary city visitors play an increasingly significant role in economic processes, this study addresses a modified version of this question: do air passengers follow creative jobs (the flow generation hypothesis), or do creative jobs follow air passengers (the structural advantage hypothesis). The results indicate that both processes are in operation, but at different times. Air passengers follow creative jobs during periods of national economic decline, while creative jobs follow air passengers during periods of national economic growth. These findings suggest that city leaders must adopt an urban growth strategy that evolves with changing national economic conditions.