There have been several decades since the creative and cultural economy (CCE) was praised for its contributions to long-term socio-economic development and also for its sustainable approach concerning the main production factors involved by the creative industries—human intellect and talent—and cultural ones, and now, more than ever, the creative sector could be perceived as vital in facing and recovering from the several crises of recent years. In order to determine the “recipe” of a flourishing local CCE, our research continues analysing seven Romanian cities, by assessing several influential factors considered as catalysts of the CCE, such as: student populations, young populations, and local public expenditure on culture during 2008–2019 for the selected creative cities. In this paper, we will determine the connection between these catalysts of the local CCEs’ development as independent variables, and two economic dimensions, the number of employees and turnover, as the dependent variables. The determination of this correlation started by using the observation method and the method of multiple regression, but further investigation was needed, so the present paper deepens the research by approaching the panel data method. Our results prove an existing correlation between the analysed variables, some of them influencing positively, and others negatively.

The sector of the creative economy brings benefits to the economy, more exactly, through the cultural sector, due to the unlimited resources needed to develop – the human resources represented by their mind or talent. The industrial development and innovation lead towards many changes in the cultural industries mostly due to the digitization effect, an irreversible change in the creation of various cultural goods and services, resulting even new cultural domains and also new regulation in the cultural field. The goods and services produced by the new cultural sector “encompass artistic, aesthetic, symbolic and spiritual values (...) their system of valorisation, which includes a characteristic irreproducible, is linked to its appreciation or pleasure” makes them different from other goods and services as Throsby mentioned (UNESCO, 2009:22). This paper aims to show some positive impacts of the creative economy, highlighting social and economic aspects, such as cultural diversity, tolerance, freedom of expression of the cultural identity and by the other hand, new jobs for artists, earnings’ increases, creative clusters, cultural employment etc. We will also show more clearly the activities and the occupations which concern the cultural employment and figures regarding cultural employment in Europe.

The living standards of Europeans have been facing serious chal­lenges starting with the Covid-19 pandemic, and continuing with the Rus­sia-Ukraine war and all its threats. Europe is facing one of its outcomes in the current gas shortage problem, impacting negatively various aspects of the Europeans’ lives, such as rising inflation. However, the rising trend of in­flation was noticed even before the problems related to the Russian gas sup­ply. The current paper presumes the Covid-19 pandemic’s lockdown and the changes in consumption behaviour also have a relevant contribution to the rising inflation; in this respect, the authors used both deductive – by collecting data regarding the national indicators – and inductive methods, as well – by conducting a survey in the Western part of Romania investigat­ing the consumption patterns. The pandemic challenged individuals, insti­tutions, entire systems, countries and regions to adapt to hardship and to create new ways of overcoming the restrictions imposed by the lockdown; although considering the stressful times and situations created by this phe­nomenon, it also enhanced negative adaptive and coping behaviours. This paper’s focus falls on the level and ways of spending during the pandem­ic, to assess if the rising inflation started with the irrational spending during the pandemic