Determinants of Labor Indicators in Creative Industries and Their Impact on the Development of Creative Industries in Monotowns of the Urals and Siberia

Irina S. Antonova ¹, ², Ekaterina A. Maleeva ¹

¹ Ural Federal University named after the First President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia
² National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia

Abstract

The search for new development paths and diversification of single-industry municipalities formed around extractive and manufacturing sectors remains a relevant socio-economic aspect of the country's socio-economic development. One possible direction for the new path of socio-economic development of monocities could be creative industries. The highest concentration of single-industry towns is observed in the Ural and Siberian regions. The purpose of this study is to identify the key determinants of the labor performance of creative industries in the single-industry towns of the Urals and Siberia. The hypothesis of the study is that the labor performance of creative industries is determined by the impact of the institutional track, indicators of the development of creative industries, as well as socio-economic parameters of the development of a single-industry town. The research methodology combines regression modeling with machine learning approaches, including Random Forest, XGBoost, and CatBoost, including the impact of the institutional track of the extractive industry, the level of development of creative industries and socio-economic indicators. These models account for the effects of institutional path dependency in extractive single-industry towns, the level of development of creative industries, and socio-economic indicators. To empirically validate the hypothesis, financial reporting data from enterprises both in mono-sectoral and creative industries was collected. Revenue, wages, and fixed assets figures were complemented with official municipal statistics. The article proposes grouping microdata of enterprises according to the specialization of single-industry municipalities, considering the official classification of types of creative industries. The study's results reveal self-similarity effect in the development of creative industries in single-industry towns through increasing revenue concentration leading to growth in labor productivity in creative industries. It is established that there exists heterogeneous influence of institutional lock-in, both positive and negative. These findings expand the dichotomy of specialization (concentration) versus diversification (variety) in the development of single-industry towns, indicating the non-evident nature of the latter’s positive impact, which needs to be considered in state policy parameters aimed at stimulating the development of creative industries.

Keywords

single-industry towns; creative industries; labor-use determinants; economic diversification; regression modeling; machine learning

JEL classification

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the grant of the Russian Science Foundation No. 22-18-00679, https://rscf.ru/en/project/22-18-00679/

About Authors

Irina Sergeevna Antonova

Candidate of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor, Senior Researcher, Laboratory of International and Regional Economics, School of Management and Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia (620002, Yekaterinburg, Mira street, 19); Associate Professor, Department of Organizational Behavior and Personnel Management, Institute of Economics and Management, National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia (634050, Tomsk, Lenin prospekt, 36); ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4993-2904 e-mail: antonova.irina@urfu.ru

Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Maleeva

Research Engineer, Laboratory of International and Regional Economics, School of Management and Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia (620002, Yekaterinburg, Mira street, 19); ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0006-6888-8394 e-mail: maleevakatie@gmail.com

For citation

Antonova, I.S., Maleeva, E.A. (2026). Determinants of Labor Indicators in Creative Industries and Their Impact on the Development of Creative Industries in Monotowns of the Urals and Siberia. Journal of Applied Economic Research, Vol. 25, No. 1, 186-221. https://doi.org/10.15826/vestnik.2026.25.1.007

Article info

Received October 17, 2025; Revised November 30, 2025; Accepted December 7, 2025.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/vestnik.2026.25.1.007

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