Modeling the impact of key regional socio-economic factors on the development of creative industries in the Russian Far East

Amid the growing role of intangible factors of production and the shift toward a knowledge economy, the development of creative industries is becoming an important avenue for diversifying the national economy and stimulating economic growth. For Russia, marked by considerable territorial and socioeconomic heterogeneity, it is particularly important to identify the factors shaping the emergence and dynamics of the creative sector at the subregional and municipal levels. The study aims to assess how socioeconomic factors affect the likelihood of new creative industry organizations being established at the municipal level, taking into account the regional context and the center–periphery hierarchy. The empirical base consists of panel data for 220 municipalities of the Far Eastern Federal District of the Russian Federation for 2012–2020, compiled from the SPARK system and official statistics. We apply linear probability models with fixed effects, which account for unobserved territorial heterogeneity and capture the influence of key factors in creative sector development. The regression results reveal a statistically significant U-shaped relationship between the number of students and the likelihood of creative industry organizations being established, pointing to a threshold effect of human capital. The associations with wages and entrepreneurial activity are less robust and depend on the model specification and territorial context: in peripheral areas their statistical significance weakens, while the U-shaped effect of educational potential persists. These findings confirm the spatial heterogeneity of the factors behind creative sector formation and underscore the central role of local educational potential. The results contribute to understanding how the creative economy emerges in Russia and can inform further empirical research, as well as provide indicative benchmarks for designing differentiated regional policies to support the creative sector.