L’impatto dei sussidi sull’efficienza dei teatri Italiani

In Italy, as in many other European countries, the performing arts (PA) are publicly subsidised. Italian PA subsidies are ensured by a Parliamentary Law that in 1985 established the Global Fund for the Performing Arts (FUS). However, the crises of Italian public finance and the consequent reduction of subsidies have made the use of public resources a central theme, especially in the management of Opera Houses. In this context, an expenditure review and the need to reduce misallocation in spending became a priority for public policy. Therefore, it seems necessary to introduce the concepts of productivity and efficiency in theatre management to evaluate the results of public finance allocation. The main aim of this research is to measure the impact of the FUS allocation to technical efficiency of Italian performing arts firms, since firms that receive less or no public funds can be either more or less efficient. In the first case in order to stay in the market, in the second case because public funds guarantee more cash to them. Data are derived from the AIDA dataset carried out by Bureau van Dijk and from the annual relationship of the Fondo Unico per lo Spettacolo (FUS) over the period 2006-2014. The results obtained using both parametric and non-parametric techniques show that technological progress is not present for the theatrical Italian sector, providing support to the presence of Baumol’s disease in the sector. The impact of public funds on the technical efficiency of the Italian theatrical firms is positive and significant, than since theatres efficiency could be increased at least by 30%, policy makers could take work on public incentives, avoiding that, due to asymmetric information between government and theatrical firms, subsidies are provided indiscriminately to theatrical firms, enlarging the inefficiency of the sector. Our findings are also that small firm size and sector of activities (Operas, Theatres, etc.) influence firm efficiency.