Flocking to the Crowd: Cultural Entrepreneur Mobility Guided by Homophily, Market size, or Amenities?

Abstract

Economic activity and innovation clusters in urban areas. Urban economics points to important knowledge and productivity spillovers in cities, in addition to other factors like thicker markets, lower transportation costs, and consumptive amenities. Yet thus far little work has analyzed how these different factors drive migration decisions of arts-related entrepreneurs, especially when they work in online platforms for fundraising. We use data on the largest US crowdfunding platform to identify relocating creators, allowing us to identify which kinds of regions are attracting and retaining more of this sort of talent. We test for the influence of clustering based on homophily, migration to larger markets, and relocation toward particular geographic amenities. Overall we find the strongest evidence for homophily and some distinct tendencies favoring certain regional amenities. Importantly, we both identify general relocation patterns among crowdfunding creatives and break down the attracting features for different types of creators. An examination of (net) migration by different categories of projects, such as musicians or filmmakers, reveals important heterogeneity in the attractors. For example, musicians are drawn stronger music sectors, while writers seek more isolation from other writers. This helps inform the interregional competition for talent and “creative class,” especially among a group of relatively footloose arts- and culture-intensive entrepreneurs.