IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/inecon/v104y2017icp104-121.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning via sequential market entry: Evidence from international releases of U.S. movies

Author

Listed:
  • Holloway, Isaac R.

Abstract

Most U.S. movies are not distributed simultaneously to all of their foreign markets and many do not recoup the costs of market entry. In theory, sequential entry allows distributors to learn about their movies' quality from performance in successive markets. I find empirical evidence consistent with recent trade models of learning about export profitability: a one-standard-deviation increase in the update to expected box-office revenues from the previous round is associated with an increase in the probability of entry to a given market of approximately 20%. This effect is robust to controls for other potential determinants of entry, including extended gravity, seasonality of demand, academy award nominations, and competition from local and imported pictures.

Suggested Citation

  • Holloway, Isaac R., 2017. "Learning via sequential market entry: Evidence from international releases of U.S. movies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 104-121.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:104:y:2017:i:c:p:104-121
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2016.10.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022199616301246
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jinteco.2016.10.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Isaac Holloway, 2014. "Foreign entry, quality, and cultural distance: product-level evidence from US movie exports," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(2), pages 371-392, May.
    2. Andrew B. Bernard & Jonathan Eaton & J. Bradford Jensen & Samuel Kortum, 2003. "Plants and Productivity in International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1268-1290, September.
    3. Matthieu Crozet & Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2012. "Quality Sorting and Trade: Firm-level Evidence for French Wine," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 609-644.
    4. Eric A. Verhoogen, 2008. "Trade, Quality Upgrading, and Wage Inequality in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 489-530.
    5. Albornoz, Facundo & Calvo Pardo, Héctor F. & Corcos, Gregory & Ornelas, Emanuel, 2012. "Sequential exporting," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 17-31.
    6. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    7. McCalman, Phillip, 2004. "Foreign direct investment and intellectual property rights: evidence from Hollywood's global distribution of movies and videos," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 107-123, January.
    8. Hallak, Juan Carlos & Sivadasan, Jagadeesh, 2013. "Product and process productivity: Implications for quality choice and conditional exporter premia," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 53-67.
    9. Hanson, Gordon & Xiang, Chong, 2011. "Trade barriers and trade flows with product heterogeneity: An application to US motion picture exports," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 14-26, January.
    10. Liran Einav, 2010. "Not All Rivals Look Alike: Estimating An Equilibrium Model Of The Release Date Timing Game," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(2), pages 369-390, April.
    11. Facundo Albornoz & Hector Calvo-Pardo & Gregory Corcos & Emanuel Ornelas, 2012. "Sequential exporting: how firms break into foreign markets," CentrePiece - The magazine for economic performance 364, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Multiproduct Firms and Trade Liberalization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1271-1318.
    13. Enrico Moretti, 2011. "Social Learning and Peer Effects in Consumption: Evidence from Movie Sales," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(1), pages 356-393.
    14. Costas Arkolakis, 2010. "Market Penetration Costs and the New Consumers Margin in International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1151-1199.
    15. McCalman, Phillip, 2005. "International diffusion and intellectual property rights: An empirical analysis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 353-372, December.
    16. Nguyen, Daniel X., 2012. "Demand uncertainty: Exporting delays and exporting failures," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 336-344.
    17. Liran Einav, 2007. "Seasonality in the U.S. motion picture industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(1), pages 127-145, March.
    18. Marcela Eslava & James Tybout & David Jinkins & C. Krizan & Jonathan Eaton, 2015. "A Search and Learning Model of Export Dynamics," 2015 Meeting Papers 1535, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00610947 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tin Cheuk Leung & Shi Qi, 2023. "Globalization and the rise of action movies in hollywood," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 47(1), pages 31-69, March.
    2. Albornoz, Facundo & Calvo Pardo, Héctor F. & Corcos, Gregory & Ornelas, Emanuel, 2023. "Sequentially exporting products across countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    3. Mao, Qilin & Sheng, Bin, 2017. "The impact of tariff reductions on firm dynamics and productivity in China: Does market-oriented transition matter?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 168-194.
    4. Juyoung Cheong & Do Won Kwak & Kam Ki Tang, 2020. "Trade Elasticity: Estimates From Product-Level Data," Discussion Papers Series 616, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    5. Christophe Bellégo & Romain De Nijs, 2020. "The Unintended Consequences of Antipiracy Laws on Markets with Asymmetric Piracy: The Case of the French Movie Industry," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1064-1086, December.
    6. Albornoz, Facundo & Calvo-Pardo, Héctor & Corcos, Gregory & Ornelas, Emanuel, 2021. "Sequential exporting across countries and products," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114383, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Jordi McKenzie, 2023. "The economics of movies (revisited): A survey of recent literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 480-525, April.
    8. Jing Yan & Feng Yu, 2021. "Can international coproduction promote the performance of cultural products in the global markets? Evidence from the Chinese movie industry," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 157(4), pages 777-798, November.
    9. Ronald Klingebiel & John Joseph & Valerie Machoba, 2022. "Sequencing innovation rollout: Learning opportunity versus entry speed," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(9), pages 1763-1792, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    2. Juan Carlos Hallak & Jagadeesh Sivadasan, 2009. "Firms' Exporting Behavior under Quality Constraints," NBER Working Papers 14928, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Movahedi, Mohammad, 2013. "Le commerce international, l’adoption de l’innovation et le choix de l’entrée-sortie à l’exportation des firmes [International trade, innovation adoption and export entry-exit choice of the firms]," MPRA Paper 44268, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jan 2014.
    4. Lo Turco, Alessia & Maggioni, Daniela, 2018. "Effects of Islamic religiosity on bilateral trust in trade: The case of Turkish exports," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 947-965.
    5. Esposito, Federico, 2022. "Demand risk and diversification through international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    6. Francesco Di Comite & Jacques-François Thisse & Hylke Vandenbussche, 2011. "Verti-zontal Differentiation in Monopolistic Competition," Development Working Papers 322, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano, revised 17 Oct 2011.
    7. Jane, Wen-Jhan, 2021. "Cultural distance in international films: An empirical investigation of a sample selection model," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    8. Raphael Auer, 2009. "Product Heterogeneity, Within-Industry Trade Patterns, and the Home Bias of Consumption?," Working Papers 09.05, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    9. Fernandes, Ana P. & Tang, Heiwai, 2014. "Learning to export from neighbors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 67-84.
    10. Flach, Lisandra & Unger, Florian, 2022. "Quality and gravity in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    11. Carlo Perroni & Davide Suverato, 2023. "Skills scarcity and export intensity," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(2), pages 719-757, May.
    12. Di Comite, Francesco & Thisse, Jacques-François & Vandenbussche, Hylke, 2014. "Verti-zontal differentiation in export markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 50-66.
    13. Federico J. Diez & Jesse Mora & Alan C. Spearot, 2016. "Firms in international trade," Working Papers 16-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    14. Ana P. Fernandes & Jing-Lin Duanmu, 2023. "Foreign Banks and Firms' Export Dynamics: Evidence from China's Banking Reform," Discussion Papers 2304, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    15. Eckel, Carsten & Iacovone, Leonardo & Javorcik, Beata & Neary, J. Peter, 2015. "Multi-product firms at home and away: Cost- versus quality-based competence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 216-232.
    16. Curzi, Daniele & Schuster, Monica & Maertens, Miet & Olper, Alessandro, 2020. "Standards, trade margins and product quality: Firm-level evidence from Peru," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    17. Jesse Mora, 2023. "Export failure and its consequences: evidence from Colombian exporters," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 159(3), pages 697-755, August.
    18. Movahedi, Mohammad & Shahbazi, Kiumars & Abdessalam, Ahmed Haidara Ould, 2019. "Firms' export decisions: Selection versus trial-and-error," Economics Discussion Papers 2019-58, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    19. Esposito, Federico, 2019. "Demand Risk and Diversification through Trade," MPRA Paper 99875, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Albornoz, Facundo & Calvo Pardo, Héctor F. & Corcos, Gregory & Ornelas, Emanuel, 2023. "Sequentially exporting products across countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Heterogeneous quality; Sequential entry; Motion pictures; Cultural trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:104:y:2017:i:c:p:104-121. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505552 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.