Air pollution

Marketing

Ecology

Biology

Pollution

Computer security

China

Archaeology

Computer science

Business

Organic chemistry

Advertising

Ticket

Geography

Market share

Environmental science

Air quality index

Chemistry

Meteorology

Box office

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

We provide new evidence of pollution avoidance in the movie theater market. Our analysis is based on a unique dataset of high-frequency movie ticket sales in China at the movie- and city-level during 2012–2014. We estimate that one pollution day reduces the market share of a movie by 2.26%, other things being equal. The effect is mainly through ambient pollution exposure during transportation to the theater. On average, popular movies are inelastic to air pollution. However, as air quality deteriorates, even blockbuster movies start to suffer a box-office loss during the heavy pollution episodes.

The impact of air pollution on movie theater admissions