Estimation of Russia's Theatre Efficiency

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in research of the economy of culture. This paper focuses on evaluation of the efficiency of Russian theatres. The solid grounding is provided to develop methodology that allows to evaluate the level of the efficiency of the theaters and to identify possible sources of its growth and reduction. More than six hundred Russian state-run theaters were studied. On the first step, data envelopment analysis was applied to identify relatively efficient and inefficient theatres. Then, tobit regression was estimated for the resulting efficiency indices, which revealed their dependence on some characteristics of the organizations. The study may have some useful basis for practical activities. It may provide recommendations to theater managers and people, who are responsible for culture development in Russia.