The Contribution of Cultural and Creative Industries to the County's Economy: A Case of Two Tourism Regions in Croatia

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to analyse the characteristics of
cultural and creative industries (CCI) in two Croatian counties
– the Istria and Šibenik-Knin Counties, as well as to assess their
contribution to the county and national economy. Given that
an important part of the CCI sector consists of public cultural
activities directly financed from public funds, an analysis of
public allocations for culture from the state and local budgets
is also conducted. Besides analysing the characteristics and
contribution of CCIs, we also investigate the impact of CCIs
on the economic development of the two counties in question
by employing fixed-effects regression for the period 2017–
2022. The results indicate that CCIs are an important part of
the economy of both counties, where the contribution of CCIs
in Istria County is stronger than in Šibenik-Knin County. The
main factor through which CCIs have a significant and
positive impact on the economic development in both counties
is the gross added value of CCIs per capita. The results also
show that other factors such as tourist arrivals (for Istria
County) and public expenditure for culture (for Šibenik-Knin
County) play significant roles in their respective county models.