Abstract
The China State Council promulgated the “Culture Industry Promotion Plan” on 26 September 2009, raising the status of the culture industry to that of a strategic industry. This paper applies a three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to investigate the efficiency of investments made in the culture industry in 2011 in China. The results show that the overall efficiency of the culture industry in China is still at a relatively low level. The scale of companies in the culture industry is a key factor restricting development. The external environment has a great influence on this efficiency; the efficiency gap between the eastern, central and western areas is obvious and reflects the degree of the environmental impact on the culture industry in these regions. The western region will experience progress if the environment changes. In contrast, the central and eastern regions will see less progress. This paper proposes the following corresponding policy recommendations based on the analysis. (1) China should focus on expanding the scale of culture industry enterprises. (2) We need to accelerate the market-oriented reform of cultural institutional mechanisms. (3) We should pay attention to the efficiency gap between cultural industries in the eastern, central and western areas. We should use government power to support the development of cultural industries in the western region.
Highlights
Since China implemented its reform and “opening up” policy thirty years ago, the rapid development of its economy has drawn the world’s attention
The slack variables for the decision-making units (DMU) calculated in the first stage are dependent variables in the second stage
The gammas of the three types of input variables are close to 0 and significant at the 5% level, showing that random factors have a significant influence on culture industry efficiency
Summary
Since China implemented its reform and “opening up” policy thirty years ago, the rapid development of its economy has drawn the world’s attention. When we study China’s growth pattern, we find that China has always followed a straightforward development path. Culture, which can be an industrial or an economic attribute, has substantial development potential and connects the economic base with superstructures. Developing the culture industry can drive China’s economy and expand its international influence. The culture industry represents an advanced mode of economic development. In this period of economic transition, the Chinese government has gradually realized the economic development potential of the culture industry; it is considered a “soft power” that could boost economic transition. The culture industry has been promoted as a key industry and a low-carbon industry, and corresponding investments have been increased
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