Progress in 2011
The evolutionary economics section of the creative industries research program was slowed by the impact of the Brisbane floods in January (literally washing away many research notes and records). However, exceptional work by research associates kept the program on track.
The first project competed was the Cultural Consumption Price Index (CCPI), which tracked a basket of items across over urban, regional and outback Australia. This work by Potts and MacDonald was widely reported in print and radio media in April.
A new index of creative cities was developed by Hartley, Potts and MacDonald, and comprehensive estimates for four cities (including Brisbane and Melbourne) were made by MacDonald, Erkunt and Kufleitner for a basket of 30 cultural consumption items, using the CCI methodology developed by Hartley.
Potts,Tarecq Shehadeh, and Hilke Buddelmeyer from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research have used the HILDA (Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia) panel to study the transition from creative education to creative labour.
Plans for 2012
Both the CCPI and the Creative Cities index will be further developed in 2012. This will include further estimates to create more comprehensive index results as well as publication of methodology and approach in appropriate journals.
2012 will see further conceptual and theoretical papers published on themes of the economics of creative competition, further work on creative industries labour markets, and further developing models and applications of cultural science.
Specific further programs will include:
- the development of work on ‘Innovation Commons’ (led by Potts) that will focus on the coordination of shared resources in creative production and innovation. This will aim to extent the work of Elinor Ostrom, and will be presented as a keynote at the 2012 Scumpeter Society conference in Brisbane.
- work on an ‘evolutionary theory of thrift’ based upon signalling theory by Potts, Podkalicka and Hartley. This will contribute to the cultural science program.
Impact
- Potts debated the leader of the New Zealand Greens Party in Wellington on alternative economic indicators (hosted by the Law and Economics Society of New Zealand)
- Baseline study for Global Creative Cities Index completed by Hartley, Potts, MacDonald, Erkunt and Kufleitner.
- Cultural Consumption Price Index for Australia completed by Potts and MacDonald. A report on this was published in The Australian’s Inquirer section by Potts and Cunningham.
New Knowledge Generated
Two new indexes were constructed: one on cultural consumption prices by geographic region; the second on the indicators of creative cities using previous models developed at the CCI. These findings were preliminarily released in 2011 but will be published in academic journals in 2012.
New discoveries were made using the HILDA panel about the extent of over-education in creative labour markets. These results will be published in 2012.