Export Competitiveness Analysis of Creative Industries in the European Union

Research purpose. The research purpose is to assess and compare the competitiveness of the EU creative industries’ export.

Design/Methodology/Approach. The article is organised as follows: Section 1 presents a short theoretical conception of creative industries; Section 2 presents the theoretical background of trade competitiveness indices; Section 3 introduces the research data set, method and variables; Section 4 discusses the results of the revealed comparative advantage index analysis; and the final section presents the conclusions of the research. It should be noted that the research does not cover all possible factors underlying the differences in the external sector performance and thus may need to be complemented with country-specific analysis as warranted. Methods of the research include theoretical review and analysis, evaluation of comparative advantage indices and clustering.

Findings. The analysis revealed that the EU countries may gain competitiveness because of the globalisation effects and the development of creative industries. The increase in the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index during the period 2004–2017 shows rising EU international trade specialisation in creative industries. According to dynamic RCA index results, France, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain has competitive advantage in creative industries sectors and could be specified as ‘rising stars’ according to dynamic of their export.

Originality/Value/Practical implications. A creative industries analysis is becoming increasingly relevant in scientific research. Fast globalisation growth affects the processes in which closed economies together with their specific sectors are no longer competitive in the market because productivity of countries as well as particular economic sectors depends on international trade liberalisation, technology and innovation. Scientific literature, nevertheless, contains a gap in the area of international trade competitiveness research in creative industries sector.