We develop a novel approach to measuring long-run economic growth by exploiting systematic variation in the use of color in European paintings. Drawing inspiration from the literature on nighttime lights as a proxy for income, we extract hue, saturation, and brightness from millions of pixels to...

Purpose The literature on the potential benefits of art investing has yet to consider the effects of categorizing world regional art markets (e.g. Latin American art) by artistic styles or movements (e.g. Latin American surrealism, Latin American conceptual art, etc.). We propose that such...

This study addresses a significant gap in the existing literature by conducting a comprehensive systematic review of the art market over the past 50 years, utilizing big data analysis and bibliometric methods. Through descriptive statistical analysis, we gained insights into research trends,...

Analysts quantify price uncertainty through their estimates. This study utilizes the art market as an exogenous setting to explore how an increase in price uncertainty (e.g., the death of an artist) impacts the accuracy and precision of analysts' estimates. We find that in the year following an...

This paper discusses various aspects of the German art market, including a brief history of German art throughout the twentieth century and the great influence of World Wars I and II. Different styles and movements, such as Expressionism (e.g. Die Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter), Neue Sachlichkeit...

If a hypothetical investor diversifies her portfolio by investing in an index based upon the contemporary art market, has she invested in an efficient market or not? I investigate the presence of time series momentum in the market of contemporary living artists by considering a different...

To increase primary market sales, do artists alter the content of their work to follow trends? Our survey of U.S. visual fine artists finds that about half do. We compare these artists across demographic, market experience, and motivational measures, to construct a behavioral profile. We also...

Most existing literature has ignored the potential effects that color intensity may have on art prices (bearing a few recent exceptions). We examine 1,627 paintings executed by the “Big five” Latin American artists (Rivera, Tamayo, Lam, Matta, and Botero) and sold at Sotheby’s and...

The death of an artist constitutes a negative supply shock to his future production; in finance terms, this supply shock reduces the artist's float. Intuition may thus suggest that this supply shock reduces the future auction volume of the artist. However, if collectors have fluctuating...

Is art a safe haven in times of political or financial crisis? We trace the long-term performance of the UK art market during world wars, economic recessions, financial crises, inflationary periods, and changes in monetary policy. We digitalized historical auction archives to construct art price...

We provide evidence for the behavioral biases of anchoring and loss aversion in paintings sold at auction. We find that anchoring is more important for items that are resold quickly, and that the effect of loss aversion increases with the time that a painting is held. This evidence contributes...

Since the growth of the art market into a capitalized global art industry, public and academic discourse on art auctions has been dominated by record prices. Despite the financial potential of art auctions as well as the public and academic interest in art, understanding of auction prices is...

Digital art uses digital technology as part of the creative process or exhibition presentation. Crypto art is linked to blockchain technology and concerns certified digital artworks. Valuation profiles take their cues from the metrics traditionally used for copyright (royalty monetization or...

The latest wave of cryptomania has brought us yet another acronym after ICOs (initial coin offerings) – NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Touted as a means to render readily replicable digital art (and possibly other objects) rare and scarce, NFT-mania reached its apogee with the auction of...

Based upon a series of interviews with art market experts, this article identifies and answers a significant, yet previously unexplored economics puzzle affecting the art market. Economic theory suggests that markets generally produce efficiency and social wealth, but when they fail, most actors...

Primary market galleries -- Secondary market galleries -- Auction houses -- Public museums and collections -- Business models: For-profit, nonprofit, government-supported, and others -- Antiques -- Art fairs -- Curatorship -- Venue management -- Marketing -- Art history, art criticism, and the...