Socio-economic effects on increased cinema attendance: The case of Japan

Recently the Japanese film industry revived after a long period of decline. This has been accompanied by structural changes characterized by the present growth of multiplexes and consumer demand. This paper attempts to explore the recent revival process of the film industry in Japan using panel data of 47 prefectures from the period 1990–2001. I found, through fixed effects and Conditional Logit estimations, the following. First, decay of informal social networks is less likely to increase a film's attendance numbers, while multiplexes are more likely to increase those numbers. Second, new cinemas tend to be built in locations where the market is less competitive and are less inclined to be located in areas where informal social networks are weaker.