Causal Effects of Creative Industries Economics Reform on Institutional Accountability in Uganda: A Difference-in-Differences Design

While the creative economy has attracted policy attention as a vehicle for employment and growth, its governance consequences remain theoretically under-specified and empirically unexamined. The analysis argues that creative industries reform operates through three distinct mechanisms: the formalisation of informal cultural production, the creation of new regulatory intermediaries, and the reconfiguration of patronage networks that have historically mediated state-arts relations. A difference-in-differences design is proposed that exploits the staggered rollout of Uganda's creative industries development programmes across districts, with institutional accountability measured through budget transparency, procurement integrity, and responsiveness to cultural sector stakeholders. The framework is designed to identify heterogeneous effects across districts with varying pre-existing institutional capacity, thereby addressing a central limitation of uniform policy evaluations.