Creativity over Time and Space

Arbeitspapier

Creativity is often highly concentrated in time and space, and across different domains. What explains the formation and decay of clusters of creativity? In this paper we match data on thousands of notable individuals born in Europe between the XIth and the XIXth century with historical data on city institutions and population. Our main variable of interest is the number of famous creatives (scaled to local population) born in a city during a century, but we also look at famous immigrants (based on location of death). We first document several stylized facts: famous births and immigrants are spatially concentrated and clustered across disciplines, creative clusters are persistent but less than population, and spatial mobility has remained stable over the centuries. Next, we show that the emergence of city institutions protecting economic and political freedoms and promoting local autonomy facilitates the attraction and production of creative talent.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: CReAM Discussion Paper Series ; No. 09/19

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; General Regional Economics (includes Regional Data) ; Economic Development: General ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
• Thema: innovation ; agglomeration ; political institutions ; immigration ; gravity

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Serafinelli, Michel ; Tabellini, Guido
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Centre for Research & Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London
• (wo): London
• (wann): 2019

Weitere Informationen

• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ