Monday, December 13, 2021

Russia’s Creative Sector Growing but Losing Diversity, HSE Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – Over the last five years, the number of Russians working in creative fields has risen from 3.9 million to 4.8 million, the Institute for Statistical Research and Economic Knowledge of the Higher School of Economics says, but the number of businesses in this sector has fallen by 25 percent and is accelerating.

            In 2016, 9700 creative enterprises closed; in 2017, 3700; in 2018, 11,000; in 2019, 19,500; and in 2020, more than 20,000, the HSE researchers say (issek.hse.ru/news/522653516.html and https://www.finanz.ru/novosti/aktsii/rossiya-poteryala-25percent-kreativnogo-biznesa-za-pyat-let-1030912526).

            What has happened, they continue, is that many smaller firms have closed down or been absorbed by larger ones. If new smaller firms were emerging, that process would not be a problem as larger firms often allow ideas developed in smaller ones to flourish. But that isn’t happening.

            Instead, the share of this sector smaller firms occupy has declined, a development that by itself means that places where innovation most often happens are disappearing in Russia, a trend that points to a further decline in inventiveness in a variety of sectors of the Russian economy, the HSE investigators conclude.

 

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