The cultural and creative economy in Italy: Spatial patterns in peripheral areas

In this article, we analyse the structure of the Italian cultural and creative economy, focusing on peripheral areas. We highlight patterns of specialisation and spatial dependency through employment data and firms’ data. In addition, we develop a novel data set by collecting data that use the least aggregated territorial unit, that is, Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics level 4 (from the French version Nomenclature des Unités territoriales statistiques); thus, we create a harmonised taxonomy of cultural and creative industries at a four-digit level. Our multi-step analysis highlights specific geographical patterns and a clear spatial organisation in inner areas. This study’s results may benefit evidence-based policy-setting in the under-investigated context of culture-led development and the creative economy of peripheral areas.