What factors drive creative industries in GCC countries?

Abstract

The creative economy stimulates innovation and leads to the transmittal of knowledge across all sectors of the economy, fostering comprehensive development. The creative economy is a vital segment contributing to the country's GDP. This study empirically examines the performance and the factors that drive creative industries in six GCC economies using the dataset from 2002 to 2023. We find that the United Arab Emirates is the leading contributor to exports of creative industries, followed by Saudi Arabia. This study examines the factors that drive trade in creative industries and finds that the lagged value of trade of creative industries, GDP growth, financial development index, and mobile technology are significant predictors in GCC countries.