Additionality

If a production would have shot in a country anyway and the country pays it to shoot there, the payment bought nothing. Additionality is the share of the activity that is genuinely caused by the money rather than merely subsidised alongside it. Every argument about whether a film incentive works reduces to this, which is why the honest evaluations spend most of their length on it.

New Zealand’s own documents give two answers that do not sit comfortably together, and this course carries both rather than picking. Its 2018 evaluation estimated that without the grant 74.8 percent of domestic and 91.6 percent of international activity would be lost, which is very high additionality, while noting that its counterfactual was “relatively speculative” and its estimates “indicative only.” Its ministry’s more recent Budget reporting gives a Year 1 additionality result of “Nil,” with the economic value and skills indicators marked as not yet available pending a three-year evaluation.

The reason to keep the tension rather than resolve it is that additionality is model-dependent by nature. It requires stating what would have happened in a world that did not happen. Anybody quoting a single additionality figure at you, in either direction, is quoting the output of an assumption, and the assumption is the thing to ask about.

Source: Sapere, Evaluating the New Zealand Screen Production Grant, March 2018, free PDF at https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/1079-evaluating-screen-production-grant-pdf , for the 74.8 and 91.6 percent estimates and its own caveats. The “Nil” result and the pending indicators are from MBIE’s Budget 2025 major spending decisions report on the New Zealand Screen Production Rebate, February 2026, free PDF at https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/31780-budget-2025-major-spending-decisions-report-new-zealand-screen-production-rebate-international . Both are set out in Case 2(c) of the Film industry playbooks research map.

First used in: 4.3 · Five countries, five different answers