Public tax credits and the film industry: an analysis of the Italian system

Abstract

This paper examines the evolution and effects of the tax credits systems introduced in the Italian film industry. We have studied the economic and juridical roots of State subsidies, enabling the readers to understand their legitimacy and providing them with the main international best practices. An empirical analysis is performed, assessing whether recent measures introduced in Italy have influenced the domestic theatrical distribution of a sample of 399 Italian films released in the last 4 years. Tax incentives are found to have a positive relation to the number of prints distributed. However, direct contributions do not have a statistical influence on theatrical distribution, supporting the recent wave of reforms aimed at shifting the mix of resources from direct to indirect public support.

Keywords:

• Film industry
• culture
• public funding
• administration
• media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 It must be stressed that the Italian law describes that a film that has “quality” can pride itself of “participations in film festivals, and awards”. Specifically, considering the bases to finance a film, up to 15 points can be assigned to films based on the number of nominations in the last 5 years, and up to 25 points to films, based on award achievement in the last 10 years.