Creative Economics

This book explores the relationship between creativity, creative people, and creative industries in regional Australia through examining lived experience. The authors draw on more than 100 qualitative interviews with creative workers, and contextualise this creative work within the broader social and cultural structures of Australia’s Hunter region (located north of Sydney, in New South Wales).

This book explores the role of the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) as drivers of local economic development. More specifically, it builds on two novel perspectives in order to interpret the phenomenon. First, despite the general recognition that CCIs are innovative economic actors, their creative output is heterogeneous, as CCIs consist of extremely diverse industries, and the concept of innovation differs from sector to sector. Second, CCIs’ creativity is locally rooted, as the context provides innovative inputs for the development of creative ideas, binding creativity with well-established theories of the regional innovation literature. The book explores these new perspectives through a novel database on CCIs’ innovation at a fine industrial and regional scale.

This book combines insights from cultural economics, public finance, and tax law, providing an accessible and comprehensive introduction in the application of tax incentives for the creative industries. It does not have a single-country focus, but instead uses the perspective and examples of various countries around the world.