Transitions of Creatives? Empirical Evidence on Occupation and Industry Specific Human Capital

The degree of transferability of skills and knowledge from an creative occupation in the creative industries to the wider economy is a great point of discussion within research in the arts and cultural and creative industries. By applying human capital theory on the labor market for creatives, this paper investigates the relationship between creative occupation and industry human capital and hourly wage after transitioning to a non-creative occupation and/ or industry. Further, it is investigated how the distance of the transition mediates the relationship between creative occupation and industry specific human capital and hourly wage. By making use of a matched employer-employee dataset from the Denmark from 1994 to 2007, wage equation are estimated. The results suggest that a transition from a creative occupation to a non-creative occupation results in an increase in the hourly wage. On the contrary, a transition from a creative industry to a non-creative industry is associated with a decrease in the hourly wage. These results are however
completely mediated by the distance of the transition, meaning that the distance of the transition completely explains the effect on the hourly wage. The results have implication for the understanding of whether creative human capital is transferable to the wider economy.