外国电影作品加入中国元素能提高在华票房吗?——文化产品本土偏好的机制分析

Can Incorporating Chinese Elements Improve the Box Office of Foreign Films in China?Mechanism Analysis of Home Bias for Cultural Products

全球化趋势日益明显的电影,这一代表性文化产品在国际贸易中受本土偏好的影响。本文以电影为例,通过构建包含产品本土偏好和产品质量两个维度的阿明顿(Armington)模型理论推演,汇总1994—2019年引进的外国分账影片数据实证检验,考察文化产品中添加东道国元素迎合其市场口味如何突破国际贸易中本土偏好的约束机制。结果显示,与理论模型结论相一致,控制影片质量后,在中国取景或使用较多亚洲演员对提升中国市场票房有正面作用;但主要演员中使用中国演员对票房影响不大,甚至男女主角中包含中国演员有显著负面影响。基于欧洲市场的稳健性检验得出一致的结论,欧洲主演和导演对非欧洲电影在欧票房表现为正向促进作用。进一步分析发现,中国元素的加入没有对外国影片质量产生显著的正向影响,进一步验证了加入迎合偏好的中国元素对在华票房的促进作用独立于产品质量。本研究结果不仅为文化产品突破国际贸易中本土偏好机制提供了理论依据,还有助于启迪中国文化产品以海外取景、使用较多海外面孔、起用国际认可度高的海外演员等方式走出国门、提升中国的文化影响力。

With the increasing trend of globalization,film,a representative cultural product,is affected by home bias in international trade.Taking movies as an example,this paper examines how adding host country elements to cultural products to cater to their market tastes breaks through the constraint mechanism of home bias in international trade by constructing the theoretical derivation of the Arm⁃ington model,which includes two dimensions of product home bias and product quality,and aggregating the empirical test of the data of foreign revenue sharing films introduced in 1994-2019.Consistent with the theoretical model conclusion,the empirical results show that after controlling for film quality,shooting on Chinese locations or staffing more Asian actors has a positive effect on boosting box office in the Chinese market;while staffing Chinese actors in the main cast has little effect on box office,and indeed the inclusion of Chinese ac⁃tors in the male and female leads has a significant negative effect.Robustness tests based on the European market yields consistent con⁃clusions.Interestingly,European leads and directors show a positive contribution to the box office of foreign films in Europe.Further analysis reveals that the inclusion of Chinese actors in lead roles reduces the quality of foreign films,while other factors have no effects on film quality.This further supports that the positive effect of incorporating Chinese elements on the box office of foreign films in China is independent of product quality.The results of this study not only provide a theoretical basis for cultural products to break through the home bias mechanism in international trade,but also help inspire Chinese cultural products to go abroad and enhance China’s cultural influence through overseas filming,staffing more overseas faces,and staffing internationally recognized overseas actors.