Abstract
The causal relationship between the US–China trade war and consumption substitution of domestic films for American films in China is examined in this study using the difference-in-difference model. The daily screening film data in China’s 33 major cities in 2018 are employed. The results suggest that after the US–China trade war, the average attendance rate of foreign and American films has declined by 24.75% and 19.11%, respectively, compared with domestic films. As indicated by the above-mentioned finding, the trade war has led to a shift in the consumption of US films. The consumption substitution effect weakens on holidays for specific film types. People in cities exhibiting a higher economic and trade development level and a larger share of the tertiary industry are more inclined to purchase foreign cultural products. Accordingly, the negative effect of the trade war on American films is offset to some extent. As revealed by the result of this study, the negative effects are reduced with time.
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Notes
The website captures the film release data of the theatres covered by channels such as Wangpiaowang and Taopiao in real time and publishes it after correction with the data from the Office of the National Film Special Fund Management Committee. These data are of high quality and almost covers the box office, number of viewers, and number of films (seats) shown daily in each cinema in the country. In addition, they also include detailed information such as the total number of screens in each cinema and the attendance rate per show. The data used in this article come from the website’s statistical information of Wangpiaowang, which has 99% theater coverage in the 34 cities covered in this study.
Foreign films include US films. In 2018, the USA account for 88% of the box office revenue from total foreign films in our data.
In the last robustness test in this section, we use the same relative attendance rate to regress the benchmark models (1)-(2), and give the calculation formula for the relative attendance rate. See formula 5 for details.
Under different urban characteristics, the difference in the negative impact of the trade war on overseas film consumption is similar to that of American movies. The empirical results are not shown in the main text. If necessary, you can obtain it from the author.
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Ren, Y., Zong, C. & Zhan, X. Trade war, national sentiment and consumption substitution of cultural products: evidence from China’s film market. Empir Econ 66, 503–538 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-023-02467-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-023-02467-x