The Great Beauty: Public Subsidies in the Italian Movie Industry

Abstract

We examine the impact of public subsidies in the Italian movie industry by considering two dimensions: quantity (box-office revenues) and quality (film festival awards). Public subsidies and movie genres are employed as explanatory variables to investigate how public intervention and genre influence movie industry performance. We find that although public funding shows an overall negative influence on quantity and quality, there are some differences when considering public subsidies by genre. On balance, there is statistical evidence that dramas and thrillers are the genres that should be primarily financed by public agents.