Environmental Economics

“So, by delivering extraordinary performances in hit films, top stars may do more than entertain millions of moviegoers and make themselves rich in the process. They may also contribute many millions in federal taxes, and other millions in state taxes.” (Emphasis added. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.)
Well, this may take us into uncharted “multiplier” territory. What would be our way, or Mankiw’s way, to know that those taxes wouldn’t have been paid elsewhere in the economy – maybe in full or even more so – had the “hit film” (er, whatever a film might be) never been made at all? Does anyone believe for a nanosecond that Americans of all people on Earth would save the price under the mattress rather than spend or lend every last penny elsewhere?
Withdrawal of labor sufficient to care about in the slightest?
Not to worry. Let’s not forget that the “stars” of hit films nowadays have become simply rentiers. There never was the slightest shortage of artistic material in the USA, not even back when the term was 14 years non-renewable, ‘fair use’ still had a meaning, and copyright on some art forms was virtually or actually nonexistent. It follows that the draconian-ness has gone way past optimal (whatever that might be) and we’re simply overpaying far beyond absurdity.
Let’s also not forget that the vast bulk of the revenue is heisted by financial wizards. For example, in computing royalties to be paid (or, rather, not paid) to authors, composers, etc, who actually do the work, the wizards nearly always claim to “lose money” on commercially published material (films or anything else.) Indeed they “lose” so much that they often become immensely wealthy.
The same applies in spades to patent rentiers and trolls. Almost always, the wizards take nearly all. The ancestral concept of “an inventor” has become a farce, as inventions arise almost entirely out of huge salaried committees – whose salaries are usually paid directly or indirectly by taxpayers, with no genuine need for patents at all.
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”. Yeah, sure, whatever. We might even be a lot better off if we didn’t have that system eliminating opportunity by leaving nothing except for a handful, and those mostly the wizards.
Withdrawal of labor? Well, that leaves tax rates, where there are variations since there’s not (yet) a globally enforced system. There’s certainly plenty for even the middle class to complain about in, say, high-tax Euro-states. Thus, many “rich” Europeans use “fiddles” and “havens” that reduce their taxes well below the naïve imaginings of US liberals for whom Europe is quaint buildings seen through the tour-bus window. But complaints or not, you can easily find more movies than you can ever watch, and more frivolous orthodontry than anyone could ever need.
No, in our unprecedentedly massive societies, if one would-be “star” doesn’t happen to create the “art” or “invention”, another will happen along in twenty minutes with something close-enough. Inventions, etc. will get themselves into existence one way or another as the time becomes ripe. Though, just maybe, a system that actually “promoted the Progress” might bring a few things along a bit sooner instead of just enriching well-overfed social parasites. But alas, maybe such a system wouldn’t generate the right political donations/bribes to be self-sustaining.