Economia criativa brasileira no século XXI e os efeitos da pandemia: análise crítica de uma trajetória

Measuring the impact of the creative economy and its performance over time is a challenge, having seen its diversity in terms of products, forms of organization, spatial distribution and, above all, the difference in its definitions, dominant theories, and concepts. This paper aims to analyze the structure and evolution of the creative economy in Brazil from 2012 to 2021, in national terms, in regions and sectors, based on data on occupation, employment and income and exports. For this purpose, the IBGE's (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) National Continuous Household Sample Survey (PNAD-C), the Annual Social Information Report from the Ministry of Economy (RAIS) and data on international trade, also from the Ministry of Economy, are the main sources. Empirical findings on the evolution of the composition of enterprises and the degree of informality of the employed in Brazil in the 2000s are evidence of this inequality. Although activities such as advertising have been growing both in number of companies and occupation, and the "architecture and design" segment is the one that most absorbs formal and informal workers, there is a decrease in those employed in "audiovisual and music" as well as "editing and print". Moreover, information on foreign trade and the labour world in the pandemic period, 2020 and 2021 in Brazil, reflect the perverse effects of the health crisis itself, but, even further, the impacts of an absent State in fostering and encouraging culture and the arts. In addition to the loss of jobs, there was an increase in informality and income concentration, with the Northeast region being the most affected.