IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i4p1304-d319089.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding Contributions of the Creative Class to Sustainable Economic Growth in China

Author

Listed:
  • Kai Zhao

    (School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, China)

  • Yuesheng Zhang

    (School of Economics and Management, Tianjin Chengjian University, Tianjin 300384, China)

  • Jinkai Zhao

    (College of Economics and Management, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, China)

  • Xiaojing Li

    (School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, China)

Abstract

By investigating the direct effect of the ‘3T’s (the creative class; tolerance; technology) and their interactive effects on GDP per capita, based on the data collected from 279 cities over the period of 2002–2014, the aim of this study is to explore the practical value of the creative class theory to the sustainable economic development in China. Using econometric estimations; the results suggest that agglomeration of the creative class; improving tolerant milieu and increasing technology investment have positive explanatory powers in understanding the disparities in GDP per capita between different cities in China. However, the complementary effects on GDP per capita are only observed between the creative class and technology or technology and tolerance, while there is an interference effect between the creative class and tolerance. These findings suggest that Florida’s advocacy for generating creative competitiveness across cities and regions by building up selected amenities may be arguable, but that the creative class is substantially contributing to regional economic growth. However, the creative class may have a unique mix with other innovative elements in different contexts. Therefore, instead of extensively focusing on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution that praises ‘cultural consumption’, the present study suggests a ‘three-phrase theory’; which has quite generic and flexible policy focuses on different development stages.

Suggested Citation

  • Kai Zhao & Yuesheng Zhang & Jinkai Zhao & Xiaojing Li, 2020. "Understanding Contributions of the Creative Class to Sustainable Economic Growth in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-21, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:4:p:1304-:d:319089
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1304/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1304/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Möller Joachim & Tubadji Annie, 2009. "The Creative Class, Bohemians and Local Labor Market Performance: A Micro-data Panel Study for Germany 1975–2004," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 229(2-3), pages 270-291, April.
    2. Batabyal, Amitrajeet A. & Yoo, Seung Jick, 2017. "On research and development in a model of Schumpeterian economic growth in a creative region," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 69-74.
    3. Patrik Ström & Ross Nelson, 2009. "Dynamic regional competitiveness in the creative economy: can peripheral communities have a place?," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 497-511, April.
    4. David Mcgranahan & Timothy Wojan, 2007. "Recasting the Creative Class to Examine Growth Processes in Rural and Urban Counties," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 197-216.
    5. Bjørn Asheim & Høgni Kalsø Hansen, 2009. "Knowledge Bases, Talents, and Contexts: On the Usefulness of the Creative Class Approach in Sweden," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(4), pages 425-442, October.
    6. Amitrajeet A. Batabyal & Peter Nijkamp, 2013. "Human capital use, innovation, patent protection, and economic growth in multiple regions," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 113-126, March.
    7. Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci, 2012. "Education or Creativity: What Matters Most for Economic Performance?," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 88(4), pages 369-401, October.
    8. Allen John Scott, 2014. "Beyond the Creative City: Cognitive--Cultural Capitalism and the New Urbanism," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 565-578, April.
    9. Charlotta Mellander & Kevin Stolarick & José Lobo, 2017. "Distinguishing neighbourhood and workplace network effects on individual income: evidence from Sweden," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(11), pages 1652-1664, November.
    10. Høgni Kalsø Hansen & Thomas Niedomysl, 2009. "Migration of the creative class: evidence from Sweden," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 191-206, March.
    11. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    12. Huasheng Gao & Wei Zhang, 2017. "Employment Nondiscrimination Acts and Corporate Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 2982-2999, September.
    13. Ron A. Boschma & Michael Fritsch, 2009. "Creative Class and Regional Growth: Empirical Evidence from Seven European Countries," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 85(4), pages 391-423, October.
    14. Richard Jones & Blessing Chiripanhura, 2010. "Measuring the UK's human capital stock," Economic & Labour Market Review, Palgrave Macmillan;Office for National Statistics, vol. 4(11), pages 36-63, November.
    15. Richard Florida & Charlotta Mellander & Kevin Stolarick, 2008. "Inside the black box of regional development: human capital, the creative class and tolerance," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(5), pages 615-649, September.
    16. Yanfeng Jiang & Qinglan Qian & Xiaoling Zhang & Yingbiao Chen, 2019. "The Formation of Government-Oriented Creative Community and Its Driving Mechanisms: A Case Study of the 39° Space Art Creative Community in Foshan, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-20, January.
    17. Allen J. Scott, 2010. "Jobs or amenities? Destination choices of migrant engineers in the USA," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 89(1), pages 43-63, March.
    18. Glaeser, E., 2005. "Edward L. Glaeser, Review of Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 593-596, September.
    19. Margarida Rodrigues & Mário Franco, 2019. "Composite Index to Measure Cities’ Creative Performance: An Empirical Study in the Portuguese Context," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-21, February.
    20. Ann Markusen, 2006. "Urban Development and the Politics of a Creative Class: Evidence from a Study of Artists," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(10), pages 1921-1940, October.
    21. Timothy R. Wojan & Dayton M. Lambert & David A. McGranahan, 2007. "Emoting with their feet: Bohemian attraction to creative milieu -super-†," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(6), pages 711-736, November.
    22. Bjørn Asheim & Høgni Kalsø Hansen, 2009. "Knowledge Bases, Talents, and Contexts: On the Usefulness of the Creative Class Approach in Sweden," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 85(4), pages 425-442, October.
    23. Michael Storper & Allen J. Scott, 2009. "Rethinking human capital, creativity and urban growth," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 147-167, March.
    24. Jamie Peck, 2005. "Struggling with the Creative Class," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 740-770, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhen Yue & Kai Zhao, 2020. "Understanding the Effectiveness of Higher Education System: Evidences from Market Outcomes of Early University Graduates in Seven European Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-32, September.
    2. Shuai Liu & Xiao-Yu Xu & Kai Zhao & Li-Ming Xiao & Qi Li, 2021. "Understanding the Complexity of Regional Innovation Capacity Dynamics in China: From the Perspective of Hidden Markov Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-22, February.
    3. Bagher Fotuhi Mehrabani & Saeed Zanganeh Shahraki & Seyed Ali Hosseini & Narges Ahmadifard & Seyed Mohammad Hosseini & Arastoo Yari Hesar, 2022. "How Creative is Tehran? An International and National Benchmarking Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 33-69, July.
    4. Xiaohui Chen & Yiqing He, 2022. "The Impact of Financial Resilience and Steady Growth on High-Quality Economic Development—Based on a Heterogeneous Intermediary Effect Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-19, November.
    5. Wentao Yu & Xiaolan Tan, 2022. "The creative class in China: Heterogeneity and its regional determinants," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(8), pages 3466-3478, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kai Zhao & Yuesheng Zhang & Jinkai Zhao, 2020. "Exploring the Complexity of Location Choices of the Creative Class in Europe: Evidence from the EU Labor Force Survey 1995–2010," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-22, February.
    2. Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci, 2013. "Regional Development and Creativity," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 36(3), pages 354-391, July.
    3. Aurélie LALANNE & Guillaume POUYANNE, 2012. "Ten years of metropolization in economics: a bibliometric approach (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2012-11, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    4. Richard Florida & Charlotta Mellander & Patrick Adler, 2011. "The Creative Class Paradigm," Chapters, in: David Emanuel Andersson & Åke E. Andersson & Charlotta Mellander (ed.), Handbook of Creative Cities, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Vitálišová Katarína & Vaňová Anna & Šúrová Janka, 2020. "How to Attract and Retain Creative Class," NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 13(1), pages 245-266, June.
    6. Kamila Borseková & Anna Vaňová & Janka Šúrová & Pavol Kráľ & Kamila Turečková & Jan Nevima & Stanislav Martinát, 2021. "The Nexus between Creative Actors and Regional Development," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, March.
    7. Silvia Cerisola & Elisa Panzera, 2021. "Cultural and Creative Cities and Regional Economic Efficiency: Context Conditions as Catalyzers of Cultural Vibrancy and Creative Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-23, June.
    8. Christoph Alfken & Tom Broekel & Rolf Sternberg, 2015. "Factors Explaining the Spatial Agglomeration of the Creative Class: Empirical Evidence for German Artists," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(12), pages 2438-2463, December.
    9. Kristina Vaarst Andersen & Høgni Kalsø Hansen & Arne Isaksen & Mika Raunio, 2010. "Nordic City Regions in the Creative Class Debate—Putting the Creative Class Thesis to a Test," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 215-240.
    10. Michael Fritsch & Michael Stützer, 2012. "The Geography of Creative People in Germany revisited," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-065, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    11. Alina Maria Pavelea & Bogdana Neamțu & Peter Nijkamp & Karima Kourtit, 2021. "Is the Creative Class a Game Changer in Cities? A Socioeconomic Study on Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-16, May.
    12. Eckhardt Bode & Lucia Perez Villar, 2017. "Creativity, education or what? On the measurement of regional human capital," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 96, pages 51-67, March.
    13. Sara Santos Cruz & Aurora A.C. Teixeira, 2012. "Methodological approaches for measuring the creative employment: a critical appraisal with an application to Portugal," FEP Working Papers 455, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    14. David A. McGranahan & Timothy R. Wojan & Dayton M. Lambert, 2011. "The rural growth trifecta: outdoor amenities, creative class and entrepreneurial context -super-§," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 529-557, May.
    15. Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci, 2011. "Education or just Creativity: what matters most for economic performance?," ERSA conference papers ersa11p199, European Regional Science Association.
    16. David B. Audretsch & Erik E. Lehmann & Nikolaus Seitz, 2021. "Amenities, subcultures, and entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 571-591, February.
    17. Arntz, Melanie & Brüll, Eduard & Lipowski, Cäcilia, 2021. "Do preferences for urban amenities really differ by skill?," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-045, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. Roberto Antonietti, 2011. "From creativity to innovativeness: micro evidence from Italy," Openloc Working Papers 1117, Public policies and local development.
    19. Brunow, Stephan & Birkeneder, Antonia & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2018. "Creative and science-oriented employees and firm-level innovation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87588, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Wentao Yu & Xiaolan Tan, 2022. "The creative class in China: Heterogeneity and its regional determinants," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(8), pages 3466-3478, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:4:p:1304-:d:319089. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.