Do artists really contribute to the knowledge economy? An assessment at the level of EU15 regions.

Abstract

Since the introduction of the ‘creative class’, artists (bohemians) have been portrayed as contributing to innovation dynamics of cities and regions. Whereas qualitative evidence suggests the presence of spillovers from the arts to the knowledge economy, quantitative analyses offer little or no support for a positive contribution of ‘bohemians’ to the (overall) innovative performance of regions. In this paper, we assess whether and to what extent artists contribute to innovative regional performance by making an explicit distinction between technological and aesthetic innovation. Relying on a panel dataset (2003 – 2011) of 173 European regions (NUTS 2) our findings reveal distinctive contributions of artists and scientists (and engineers) albeit in different activity realms. While scientists and engineers contribute to regional technological performance (measured by means of utility patents), artists have a significant impact on innovations of a more symbolic/aesthetic nature (measured by means of designs).