Measuring the Creative Capital and its Development in the Regions of France

Abstract

Since the publication of the highly cited book of Richard Florida (“The Rise of the Creative Class. And How it's Transforming Work, Leisure and Everyday Life”), creativity has been considered as a new paradigm for economic development of cities and regions. In this context, evaluating the creative class and the creative capital has become an increasingly important concern. At the same time, measuring creative capital, in European countries in particular, remains underinvestigated. This paper is aimed at redressing this gap by evaluating the creative capital index for several regions of France. A multi-method research design was based on the Creative Capital Index project by PwC Russia. It was used to analyze both primary and secondary data on five main variables – “Regional development”, “Population”, “Business environment”, “Government” and “Brands” – from several French regions (Île-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Bretagne, Occitanie and Pays de la Loire) obtained from European, national and regional open databases, official websites of governmental and non-governmental organizations and other online resources. The analysis of the results of creative capital index estimation and the investigation of creative projects, strategies and programs that were implemented in the regions under study has shown that each region has its competitive advantage in terms of specific aspects of creative capital. The results of the study may be of use to economists and policymakers by enabling them to recognize the key factors of creativity in their regions.