Short answer: Nominations redirect revenue from non-nominees to nominees but do not expand the total market. A regression discontinuity design across 27 ceremony years (2000-2026) finds a market share shift of +4.1 percentage points (p=0.009) with no evidence of total market growth.
Key findings
- Heterogeneous effects by film size: largest boost for limited-release films that gain theater expansion post-announcement
- Market-level RD shows nominations redistribute roughly $15-20 million per cycle from non-nominees to nominees
- No total market expansion: +6.9% (95% CI: [-5.4%, +20.7%], p=0.27)
- Per-film revenue loss for non-nominees is non-significant (p=0.45) because losses are spread thinly across many titles
- The Academy acts as an information signal, not a demand creator
- Robustness checks include donut RD, quadratic polynomial, and placebo cutoffs
Data
386,866 film-day observations across 27 ceremony years. Daily U.S. box office data from The Numbers and Box Office Mojo.
Publication
Working paper (arXiv-ready). Substack explainer: “Where the Statue Pays.”
See also
- How big was the 2024 Oscar nomination bump
- Did the 2026 nominations follow the 2024 pattern
- Is the Oscar nomination bump consistent across years
- How much is an Oscar win worth at the box office
- Does the Oscar calendar affect the nomination bump
- How does course recommendation impact student outcomes — shared RD methodology