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RATINGS AND REVENUES: EVIDENCE FROM MOVIE RATINGS
Author(s) -
PALSSON CRAIG,
PRICE JOSEPH,
SHORES JARED
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
contemporary economic policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.454
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1465-7287
pISSN - 1074-3529
DOI - 10.1111/j.1465-7287.2012.00315.x
Subject(s) - revenue , exploit , index (typography) , rating system , box office , advertising , economics , business , psychology , computer science , accounting , computer security , environmental economics , world wide web
Ratings and report cards provide a relatively cheap way to influence consumer and producer decisions. We examine the specific case of movie ratings and find that receiving a mature rating (rated R) reduces a movie's box office revenues by 20%. We focus on the specific role of ratings by constructing a mature content index for each movie and compare movies with similar amounts of mature content, but that received different ratings. We also exploit the fact that the movie rating system places specific guidelines on the number of F‐words that are allowed at each content rating. ( JEL D0, L82)