SummaryThe article “Creativity over Time Space” by Michel Serafinelli and Tabellini, Guido illustrates that creativity insights are at times difficult to predict, and just when it gets really difficult, your minds immediately jump to a distraction2. For people to get the most out of their creativity, they need to make space for the other types of work too. They should be able to work systematically so that their work and thoughts are in order. The authors suggest that to achieve this, people ought to understand how creative perceptions occur. The article not only aims at analyzing information on creativity leaders born in the XIth-XIXth centuries in Europe, but also exploiting the data on the setting and dates of birth and demise of the prominent persons in diverse creative activities such as business, humanities, art, and science all over Europe. The author considers a comprehensive structure of social and intellectual mechanisms which enables a person to produce creative work.
The empirical methodology used in this article is the direct observation of the number of prominent persons per 1000 populations born in a city at any given time in a particular century between the XIth and XIXth centuries. The method is good for collecting data because it gives the researchers first-hand information that they require for the study, unlike several other methods. The article also observes the number of prominent immigrants such as the number of the demise of prominent creative individuals born in other countries. This article uses data from secondary sources that include search engines such as Freebase.com, a Google-owned database that stores data from different publicly edited sources. With these sources, the authors use historical information set on local institutions in Europe to back the information collected. Additionally, the main results in this article are that births and prominent migrants are less tenacious than population, regardless of being spatially more focused. Unfortunately, the article lacks data on where the prominent persons performed most of their important works, on the other hand, this information reimburses this imprecision with their extensiveness in terms of disciplines, characteristics, and time.
Criticisms
I think that the general question addressed in this article is the question of how concentrated the creative activities in time and space are. I think that this question is precise enough and the results outlined in the article answer the question comprehensively. The model of the comprehensive structure of social and intellectual mechanisms which enables a person to produce creative work is reasonable1. This is because according to the authors, the individuals observed in this research are meant to always make logical and prudent decisions as they are prominent creative individuals. From the article’s empirical methodology, I believe that the econometric assumptions are reasonable because even though the authors lack enough information on the exact places the observed individuals did most of their important work, the information gathered covers the inaccuracy with their breadth in terms of disciplines, characteristics, and time.
I think that the main results answer the stated question in this article. The author’s interpretation of the results is not correct since they do not explain how concentrated the creative activities are in time and space. Instead, the results explain how concentrated the number of births and deaths of prominent migrants is irrespective of being spatially more focused in time and space. However, I would like to see how the formation and decay of spatial movement of the cluster are driven by wealth or by any other factors. I would also like to see the lessons drawn from the ancient study of creative groups, given the vital role of invention and creativity in an economic progress and individual’s growth.
Alternatives
The following are the economic questions that can be answered from the authors’ dataset:
What are the underlying forces of the relationship that exists between economic wealth and famous creative?
Are wages a better measure of economic wealth than population?
What are the effects of the changes that occur in the institution, such as religious institutions and universities, in protecting political and economic freedoms?
Since the general question focuses on how concentrated the creative activities in time and space are, I think that the authors should focus more on researching the central tension between creativity and economic development. This because creative people have a tendency to move in a systematic way through the work they have to accomplish and by considering this method, it will be easier for the authors to interpret their results correctly and precisely. In addition, by doing this, the authors would be in a position of giving their study the necessary depth that a comprehensive study requires, hence, attaining reliability and validity of the study.
Recommendations
I think that this article should be accepted. This is because the authors aim to analyze and exploit information on creative leaders’ date of birth and death in various centuries in diverse creativity activities have successfully been discussed throughout the article. The authors have also used simple language that is easy to understand. I also recommend this article because it effectively displays how the development of creative groups is led by the development of city organizations that aims at protecting the political and financial independence, which enables the desirability and creation of creative ability. The text can also be used by economic students as it has some good information for academic purposes.
- Teresa, A. M. & Mueller, J. S. Studying creativity, its processes, and its antecedents: An exploration of the componential theory of creativity. Handbook of Organizational Creativity, 33-64. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, 2008.
- Michel, S. & Guido, T. Creativity over Time and Space, 2017.Available at: file:///D:/Users/User/Downloads/creativity_over_time_space_draft.pdf on 04 December 4, 2017.
