IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jculte/v34y2010i4p261-279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Superstars and heavy tails in recorded entertainment: empirical analysis of the market for DVDs

Author

Listed:
  • W. Walls

Abstract

This research presents a systematic empirical analysis of the market for digital versatile discs (DVDs). We examine a sample of 953 DVD titles that appeared on the weekly top-30 sales charts in North America over a 30-month interval. We find that the size distribution of weekly DVD sales revenue does not indicate the presence of increasing returns to information. The empirical results for DVD sales contrast starkly with previous results obtained for motion-picture box-office revenue, where a number of researchers have found evidence of positive feedback in demand. While the distribution of cumulative revenues across DVDs is highly unequal, the DVD market appears not to be characterized by the extreme heavy upper tail that so well describes the winner-take-all nature of the distribution of box-office success across motion pictures.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • W. Walls, 2010. "Superstars and heavy tails in recorded entertainment: empirical analysis of the market for DVDs," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 34(4), pages 261-279, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jculte:v:34:y:2010:i:4:p:261-279
    DOI: 10.1007/s10824-010-9125-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10824-010-9125-z
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10824-010-9125-z?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dennis W. Carlton & Judith A. Chevalier, 2001. "Free Riding and Sales Strategies for the Internet," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 441-461, December.
    2. Peter Davis, 2006. "Spatial competition in retail markets: movie theaters," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 964-982, December.
    3. Rosen, Sherwin & Rosenfield, Andrew M, 1997. "Ticket Pricing," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 351-376, October.
      • Rosen, Sherwin & Rosenfield, Andy, 1995. "Ticket Pricing," Working Papers 120, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    4. W. D. Walls, 2005. "Modelling heavy tails and skewness in film returns," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(17), pages 1181-1188.
    5. Ravid, S Abraham, 1999. "Information, Blockbusters, and Stars: A Study of the Film Industry," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(4), pages 463-492, October.
    6. Kenney, Roy W & Klein, Benjamin, 1983. "The Economics of Block Booking," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 497-540, October.
    7. James Jozefowicz & Jason Kelley & Stephanie Brewer, 2008. "New Release: An Empirical Analysis of VHS/DVD Rental Success," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 36(2), pages 139-151, June.
    8. Darlene C. Chisholm, 1993. "Asset Specificity and Long-Term Contracts: The Case of the Motion-Pictures Industry," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 143-155, Spring.
    9. Blumenthal, Marsha A, 1988. "Auctions with Constrained Information: Blind Bidding for Motion Pictures," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(2), pages 191-198, May.
    10. Darius Palia & S. Abraham Ravid & Natalia Reisel, 2008. "Choosing to Cofinance: Analysis of Project-Specific Alliances in the Movie Industry," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 483-511, April.
    11. De Vany, Arthur & Walls, W David, 1996. "Bose-Einstein Dynamics and Adaptive Contracting in the Motion Picture Industry," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(439), pages 1493-1514, November.
    12. Randy Nelson & Clifford Reid & Owen Gilmore, 2007. "An Analysis of the Out-of-Market Gap for DVDs in the U.S," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 30(4), pages 303-323, June.
    13. Charles C. Moul, 2007. "Measuring Word of Mouth's Impact on Theatrical Movie Admissions," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 859-892, December.
    14. Chisholm, Darlene C. & Norman, George, 2004. "Heterogeneous preferences and location choice with multi-product firms," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 321-339, May.
    15. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    16. Ronald L. Goettler & Phillip Leslie, 2005. "Cofinancing to Manage Risk in the Motion Picture Industry," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 231-261, June.
    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. W. David Walls, 1997. "Increasing returns to information: evidence from the Hong Kong movie market," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(5), pages 287-290.
    19. Julie Holland Mortimer, 2007. "Price Discrimination, Copyright Law, and Technological Innovation: Evidence from the Introduction of DVDs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1307-1350.
    20. David Giles, 2007. "Increasing returns to information in the US popular music industry," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(5), pages 327-331.
    21. Mizerski, Richard W, 1982. "An Attribution Explanation of the Disproportionate Influence of Unfavorable Information," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(3), pages 301-310, December.
    22. Victor Ginsburgh, 2001. "Economics of arts and culture," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/1869, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    23. De Vany, Arthur S. & Walls, W. David, 2004. "Motion picture profit, the stable Paretian hypothesis, and the curse of the superstar," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1035-1057, March.
    24. Arthur De Vany & Henry McMillan, 2004. "Was the Antitrust Action that Broke Up the Movie Studios Good for the Movies? Evidence from the Stock Market," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 6(1), pages 135-153.
    25. Vijay Mahajan & Eitan Muller & Roger A. Kerin, 1984. "Introduction Strategy for New Products with Positive and Negative Word-of-Mouth," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(12), pages 1389-1404, December.
    26. David Maddison, 2004. "Increasing returns to information and the survival of broadway theatre productions," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(10), pages 639-643.
    27. repec:bla:jindec:v:49:y:2001:i:4:p:441-61 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Peter Davis, 2006. "Measuring The Business Stealing, Cannibalization And Market Expansion Effects Of Entry In The U.S. Motion Picture Exhibition Market," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 293-321, September.
    29. W. D. Walls, 2005. "Demand stochastics, supply adaptation, and the distribution of film earnings," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(10), pages 619-623.
    30. De Vany, Arthur & Lee, Cassey, 2001. "Quality signals in information cascades and the dynamics of the distribution of motion picture box office revenues," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(3-4), pages 593-614, March.
    31. Ijiri, Yuji & Simon, Herbert A, 1974. "Interpretations of Departures from the Pareto Curve Firm-Size Distributions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 315-331, Part I, M.
    32. Arthur De Vany & W. David Walls, 2002. "Does Hollywood Make Too Many R-Rated Movies? Risk, Stochastic Dominance, and the Illusion of Expectation," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(3), pages 425-452, July.
    33. F. Andrew, 2002. "Revenue-Sharing in Movie Exhibition and the Arrival of Sound," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 380-402, July.
    34. Arthur De Vany & W. Walls, 1999. "Uncertainty in the Movie Industry: Does Star Power Reduce the Terror of the Box Office?," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 23(4), pages 285-318, November.
    35. Charles Moul, 2001. "Evidence of Qualitative Learning‐by‐Doing from the Advent of the ‘Talkie’," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 97-109, March.
    36. Vining, Daniel R, Jr, 1976. "Autocorrelated Growth Rates and the Pareto Law: A Further Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(2), pages 369-380, April.
    37. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    38. Chris Hand, 2001. "Increasing returns to information: further evidence from the UK film market," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(6), pages 419-421.
    39. C. Edward Fee, 2002. "The Costs of Outside Equity Control: Evidence from Motion Picture Financing Decisions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(4), pages 681-712, October.
    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. Trilce Navarrete & Karol J. Borowiecki, 2015. "Change in access after digitization: Ethnographic collections in Wikipedia," ACEI Working Paper Series AWP-10-2015, Association for Cultural Economics International, revised Oct 2015.
    2. 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.
    3. Jordi McKenzie, 2010. "How do theatrical box office revenues affect DVD retail sales? Australian empirical evidence," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 34(3), pages 159-179, August.
    4. Milenko POPOVIĆ & Kruna RATKOVIĆ, 2013. "Oversupply Of Labor And Other Peculiarities Of Arts Labor Market," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 4(2), pages 204-230.
    5. Jordi McKenzie & Vladimir Smirnov, 2018. "Blockbusters and market expansion: evidence from the motion picture industry," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 42(2), pages 341-352, May.
    6. Staffan Albinsson, 2013. "Swings and roundabouts: Swedish music copyrights 1980–2009," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 37(2), pages 175-184, May.
    7. Aloys Prinz & Jan Piening & Thomas Ehrmann, 2015. "The success of art galleries: a dynamic model with competition and information effects," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 39(2), pages 153-176, May.

    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. W. D. Walls, 2009. "The Market for Motion Pictures in Thailand: Rank, Revenue, and Survival at the Box Office," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 8(2), pages 115-131, August.
    2. Wen-jhan Jane & Wei-peng Chen & Yuan-lin Hsu, 2015. "The impact of deregulation on the movie box office after Taiwan’s entry into the WTO: the difference-in-differences estimation," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 5(2), pages 289-308, December.
    3. Jordi McKenzie, 2010. "How do theatrical box office revenues affect DVD retail sales? Australian empirical evidence," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 34(3), pages 159-179, August.
    4. Jordi McKenzie, 2009. "Revealed word-of-mouth demand and adaptive supply: survival of motion pictures at the Australian box office," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 33(4), pages 279-299, November.
    5. Jordi McKenzie, 2010. "Do 'African American' films perform better or worse at the box office? An empirical analysis of motion picture revenues and profits," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(16), pages 1559-1564.
    6. Gaffeo, Edoardo & Scorcu, Antonello E. & Vici, Laura, 2008. "Demand distribution dynamics in creative industries: The market for books in Italy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 257-268, September.
    7. Darlene Chisholm & Víctor Fernández-Blanco & S. Abraham Ravid & W. David Walls, 2015. "Economics of motion pictures: the state of the art," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 39(1), pages 1-13, February.
    8. Gaenssle Sophia & Budzinski Oliver & Astakhova Daria, 2018. "Conquering the Box Office: Factors Influencing Success of International Movies in Russia," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(4), pages 245-266, December.
    9. Natalia Gmerek, 2015. "The determinants of Polish movies’ box office performance in Poland," Journal of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour in Emerging Markets, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 1(1), pages 15-35.
    10. Darlene C Chisholm, 2011. "Motion Pictures," Chapters, in: Ruth Towse (ed.), A Handbook of Cultural Economics, Second Edition, chapter 39, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Moez Hababou & Nawel Amrouche & Kamel Jedidi, 2016. "Measuring Economic Efficiency in the Motion Picture Industry: a Data Envelopment Analysis Approach," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 3(3), pages 144-158, December.
    12. 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.
    13. Jordi McKenzie, 2010. "Movie producers and the statistical distribution of achievement," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(17), pages 1657-1661.
    14. Arthur Vany & W. Walls, 2007. "Estimating the Effects of Movie Piracy on Box-office Revenue," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 30(4), pages 291-301, June.
    15. W. D. Walls & Jordi McKenzie, 2020. "Black swan models for the entertainment industry with an application to the movie business," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(6), pages 3019-3032, December.
    16. David Giles, 2007. "Increasing returns to information in the US popular music industry," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(5), pages 327-331.
    17. Christian Opitz & Kay H. Hofmann, 2014. "Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard in Equity Partnerships: Evidence from Hollywood's Slate Financing Agreements," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 811-838, December.
    18. Allègre Hadida, 2010. "Commercial success and artistic recognition of motion picture projects," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 34(1), pages 45-80, February.
    19. Sayantan Ghosh Dastidar & Caroline Elliott, 2020. "The Indian film industry in a changing international market," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 44(1), pages 97-116, March.
    20. JORDI McKENZIE, 2009. "Illegal Music Downloading And Its Impact On Legitimate Sales: Australian Empirical Evidence," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 296-307, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    DVD sales; Winner-take-all; Heavy tails; L82;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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:kap:jculte:v:34:y:2010:i:4:p:261-279. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.