Technology, Talent and Tolerance - The Geography of the Creative Class in Sweden

Abstract

The report is a statistical analysis of how the creative class approach and specifically how technology, talent, tolerance and the creative class are linked to regional growth in Sweden. When examining the location of the creative class, technology, talent and tolerance, Uppsala, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo-Lund appear as the most competitive Swedish regions. By use of multivariate regression models, the relationships between people climate and the creative class, secondly between the creative class and business climate and, lastly, between business climate and regional growth are examined. Unfortunately, occupation data, and thus data on the creative class, is not available in Sweden further back than 2002. To compensate for that, educational data of talents are used as a proxy for the creative class. This method is acceptable because talents and creative class correlate with 0,935 in 2002. The results for the statistical analysis lead us to believe that over time the creative class has a positive impact on regional development, but that the business climate part of Florida’s theoretical model does not prove very important in a Swedish context. The most obvious explanation for this lack of statistical cohesion is very likely that the proxies used within this analysis are imprecise or far more complex than suggested by Florida. The paper concludes that the importance which Florida’s theoretical approach assigns to business climate might be exaggerated. The knowledge economy might be far less dependent on traditional business climate parameters. As competitiveness increasingly depends on a labour force as carriers of knowledge, business climate might have lost its importance in contemporary regional development. Further, based on the statistical models, it is stated that the 3T model which argues that growth is an outcome of co-presence of technology, talent and tolerance does not reflect the case in Sweden. Rather growth is linked to tolerance and talent. Thus in Sweden, the three T’s are narrowed down to two – based on the variables used in this analysis. (Less)

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