主题：When Airpocalypse Met Blockbusters: The Impact of Air Pollution on Box Office

主讲人：何晓波（上海对外经贸大学国际经贸学院助理教授、澳大利亚阿德莱德大学经济学博士）

讲座时间：2017年5月19日下午2点30分

讲座地点：威廉希尔楼210室

组织发起：威廉希尔经济学实验班工作小组

主办单位：威廉希尔

协办单位：科研处

主题简介：

This paper estimates the ramification of air quality and theatrical market performances with daily data of Air Pollution Index (API) and movie attendance and revenue from China. It is the first attempt to assess the impact of air quality on consumption. Our data cover 829 movies shown on screens in 56 major Chinese cities during 2012-2014. Our benchmark estimations show that air pollution in China has negative effects on both daily movie audiences and revenue. In particular, a 10% reduction in API leads to a 0.33% increase in total daily audiences in a city, while the benefit in total daily revenue is 0.41%. These numbers should be interpreted as the lower bound estimates that air pollution has on the entertainment industry that includes theaters and restaurants. The baseline result that API negatively affects daily performance of movies is robust to a number of alternative specifications and sub-samples analyses.

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