Does Related variety matter for Creative Industries?

Creative industries have become a priority sector for economic development and to exit from the actual economic crisis. Nevertheless, creative industries includes heterogeneous industries and it is not enough investigated how variety and diversity work to favour knowledge spillovers and cross-fertilization processes. The Related Variety approach aims to identify key factors of economic growth considering the need for a local system to have a certain degree of cognitive proximity, so as to promote innovation and development in the area. This work contributes to both these strands of research and it attempts to investigate the role and importance of related and unrelated variety within creative industries for local economic growth. The study focuses on employment growth at provincial level during a long run period 1991-2011 in Italy. Results suggests that the employment growth in creative industries depends on their variety and, even more, on their related variety, which make them able to promote interactions among industries and foster creativity.