Panel evidence and bibliometric insights on creative industries, human capital, and broadband in Latin America from 2010 to 2022

Abstract

This paper assesses whether Latin America’s ‘orange’ economy advances inclusive, sustainable growth by combining a panel of 18 LAC countries (≈200 country–years, 2010–2022) with a bibliometric map of regional publications (2019–2024). Creative industries account for ∼2.8% of GDP and ∼2.2% of employment on average, with country peaks near 5%. Fixed-effects regressions show that a one-percentage-point increase in the creative-employment share is associated with a 0.47 percentage-point rise in real GDP-per-capita growth (p < 0.05), about a 22% lift over the sample mean of 2.1%. The effect is strongly conditional: each additional year of schooling and each 10-point gain in internet penetration raise the marginal growth dividend by 0.112 and 0.081 percentage points, respectively. Spillovers to non-creative employment are not automatic; they appear primarily in higher-education contexts, where a 10% expansion of creative jobs is followed by ∼2.8% growth in other jobs. Bibliometric clusters, digitalization, intellectual property, and financing mirror these quantitative constraints and enablers. Taken together, the evidence indicates that creative-sector promotion can deliver meaningful macroeconomic and labor-market benefits in LAC when paired with investments in education, broadband, IP enforcement, and innovative finance. Policy should therefore treat creative-economy tools as complements to human-capital and connectivity strategies, not substitutes.