Evaluation of innovation efficiency in China's cultural industry: A meta‐frontier with non‐radial directional distance function approach

In recent years, the proportion of added value of China's cultural industry to GDP has been increasing year by year. However, due to different levels of economic development and cultural resources, there are significant differences in the development of cultural industries in different regions. This study considers a sustainable positive externality by setting the patent as a new output and employs the non‐radial directional distance function in the framework of meta‐frontier to investigate the innovative performance of China's cultural industry because of regional disparities. Our main findings are that there is a major technological gap among the eastern region, the central region and the western region, in which the technical and management capabilities of the eastern region are far greater than those of the central and western regions; Cultural industries have greater room for improvement in the eastern, central and western regions, especially the western region; The efficiency level of the cultural industry is likely to be related to the local economic strength. This article explores the factors that constrain the competitiveness of cultural industries in different regions of China. Then based on its influencing factors, corresponding development measures are proposed.