Patrick Messerlin

This paper explores a much-neglected aspect of cultural policies: the role of the institutions in charge and the way they use the instruments at their disposal. It focuses on the film industry which offers the remarkable contrast on how the Korean film industry has outperformed the French one in less than twenty years. This paper provides three conclusions. First, it presents an economic analysis of the French and Korean institutions which shows that building a...

This article explores which trade-related policies are effective – that is both economically and culturally sound – to promote the film industry that has recently been highlighted more due to its prominent political, economic and cultural dimensions. By examining the trade-related policies of nine major countries for their film industries over the last forty years, several important findings are extracted which contribute towards a more pragmatic debate...

Since its origin, one of the key concerns regarding copyright law was the duration of its protection. Over the last half-century, there has been a strong advocacy to prolong copyright duration. In this respect, it is important to rigorously examine if a longer copyright duration is helpful in guaranteeing the earnings of authors from their works as well as the promotion of cultural creativity and diversity. This paper addresses these issues by adopting a...

Over the past decade, a specific form of Korean popular music—K-pop—has enjoyed huge success around the world. Previous explanations have mostly focused on the demand side, such as intra-Asian cultural relations. This paper shifts the focus onto the supply side. Firstly, it presents new evidence on the scale of K-pop’s success in markets—with price-tags or no price-tag. Secondly, it argues that K-pop firms have been successful because they have made the...