Assessing the Impact of Protectionism upon the Performance of Actors: The Case of the French and Korean Film Industries

The film industry has received increasing attention due to social, cultural, and economic reasons. Consequently, many countries have introduced various measures to protect and promote it, particularly through the use of subsidies. So far, many works have focused on how protectionism affects the film industry with focus on production and consumption. In this regard, this paper focuses on the impact of protectionism upon the performance of actors by comparing the French and Korean film industries, which has been less studied. This paper reveals three interesting points that should be carefully considered in order to make effective policies for the film industry. First, subsidies to protect the film industry increase the performance fee of actors since part of the subsidies goes to them. Second, direct subsidies that are distributed to the director also distort the film producing structure by increasing the number of actor-directors. Third, subsidies for international co-production increase the number of actors who collaborate with international producers.