The creative economy and sustainable development: The Baltic States

The creative economy is one of the fastest developing sectors in the global economy, providing income growth, new jobs and export earnings. In addition to economic benefits that flow from cultural and creative industries, the aforementioned contribute to resolving issues of sustainable urban development, as well as contributing to the 2030 Agenda, which is the main initiative of the United Nations. Although it is acknowledged by scholars that creativity promotes inclusive social progress and empowers people to take responsibility for their own economic, social and personal development and encourages innovation, which contributes significantly to sustainable growth, there is lack of empirically tested results. The article aims to analyse the linkages between the implementation of sustainable development goals achieved by countries, and the development of the creative economy in such countries. The empirical data were collected for comparison of creativity and sustainability indexes by reference to the case study of the Baltic States. Policy implications were provided based on the research conducted. The study found that Estonia is the best performing country in terms of measures of creativity and assessments of that country's creative economy. Furthermore, Estonia is the most sustainable country, and has achieved the greatest progress in implementing sustainable development goals of any of the Baltic States. All of the environmental indicators for Latvia, and taking into account Lithuania's economic indicators place these two countries at the same level in terms of sustainability. Highlights The linkages between sustainable development and creative economy analysed; Creativity and sustainability indexes are critically discussed; The creativity and sustainability indexes were compared in the case study for Baltic States; Policy implications were provided based on the research conducted.