IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jculte/v41y2017i3d10.1007_s10824-016-9269-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Arts and craftiness: an economic analysis of art heists

Author

Listed:
  • Frederick Chen

    (Wake Forest University)

  • Rebecca Regan

    (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)

Abstract

We study the incentives that museums face in determining how much resources to invest in the protection of their artwork from theft. We present and analyze a game-theoretic model of art heists that accounts for the strategic interactions between museums’ and art thieves’ decisions and that incorporates several key features of the black market for stolen art. We find that the equilibrium level of security museums choose need not be monotonic in the true market value or the black market value of artwork, i.e., increasing the value of an art piece—whether it is the true market value or the black market value—does not necessarily lead museums to invest more in protecting their artwork. The effects of parameter changes in the model that reflect a shift of public policy depend critically on what type of policy change is considered. For instance, an increase in the penalty imposed for committing art theft cannot raise the amount of theft in equilibrium and could in fact lead museums to increase their level of security. On the other hand, investing more resources on law enforcement agencies so that they are better able to solve art crimes can actually increase the amount of theft in equilibrium by causing museums to spend less on security.

Suggested Citation

  • Frederick Chen & Rebecca Regan, 2017. "Arts and craftiness: an economic analysis of art heists," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 41(3), pages 283-307, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jculte:v:41:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s10824-016-9269-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s10824-016-9269-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10824-016-9269-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10824-016-9269-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antonio Nicita & Matteo Rizzolli, 2009. "The Economics of Art Thefts: Too Much Screaming over Munch's The Scream?," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 28(4), pages 291-303, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Yermack, 2015. "Donor Governance and Financial Management in Prominent U.S. Art Museums," NBER Working Papers 21066, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Roee Sarel, 2022. "Crime and punishment in times of pandemics," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 155-186, October.
    3. David Yermack, 2017. "Donor governance and financial management in prominent US art museums," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 41(3), pages 215-235, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Art heists; Museums; Art thieves; Black market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jculte:v:41:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s10824-016-9269-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.