IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/luc/wpaper/13-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does it Pay to Invest in Art? A Selection-corrected Returns Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Roman Kraussl
  • Arthur Korteweg
  • Patrick Verwijmeren

    (LSF)

Abstract

This paper shows the importance of correcting for sample selection when investing in illiquid assets with endogenous trading. Using a large sample of 20,538 paintings that were sold repeatedly at auction between 1972 and 2010, we find that paintings with higher price appreciation are more likely to trade. This strongly biases estimates of returns. The selection-corrected average annual index return is 7 percent, down from 11 percent for traditional uncorrected repeat-sales regressions, and Sharpe Ratios drop from 0.4 to 0.1. From a pure financial perspective, passive index investing in paintings is not a viable investment strategy, once selection bias is accounted for. Our results have important implications for other illiquid asset classes that trade endogenously.

Suggested Citation

  • Roman Kraussl & Arthur Korteweg & Patrick Verwijmeren, 2013. "Does it Pay to Invest in Art? A Selection-corrected Returns Perspective," DEM Discussion Paper Series 13-7, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:luc:wpaper:13-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wwwen.uni.lu/content/download/63920/807060/file/Binder7_Does%20it%20Pay%20to%20Invest%20in%20Art_A%20Selection-corrected%20Returns%20Perspective_July%202013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Ang & Dimitris Papanikolaou & Mark M. Westerfield, 2014. "Portfolio Choice with Illiquid Assets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2737-2761, November.
    2. Orley Ashenfelter & Kathryn Graddy, 2003. "Auctions and the Price of Art," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 763-787, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. William Goetzmann & Elena Mamonova & Christophe Spaenjers, 2014. "The Economics of Aesthetics and Three Centuries of Art Price Records," NBER Working Papers 20440, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kräussl, Roman & Lehnert, Thorsten & Martelin, Nicolas, 2016. "Is there a bubble in the art market?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 99-109.
    3. Penasse, J.N.G. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2014. "Bubbles and Trading Frenzies : Evidence from the Art Market," Other publications TiSEM bf0d8984-df7f-4f02-afc7-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    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. Arthur Korteweg & Roman Kräussl & Patrick Verwijmeren, 2016. "Does it Pay to Invest in Art? A Selection-Corrected Returns Perspective," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(4), pages 1007-1038.
    2. Whitaker, Amy & Kräussl, Roman, 2023. "Art collectors as venture capitalists," CFS Working Paper Series 696, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    3. Amy Whitaker & Roman Kräussl, 2020. "Fractional Equity, Blockchain, and the Future of Creative Work," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4594-4611, October.
    4. Laurent Lamy, 2013. "“Upping the ante”: how to design efficient auctions with entry?," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(2), pages 194-214, June.
    5. Michel Clement & Anke Lepthien & Tim Schulze, 2016. "Erfolgsfaktoren bei der Vermarktung von Kunst [Success Factors for Marketing of Arts]," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 68(4), pages 377-400, December.
    6. Maria Ludovica Drudi & Giulio Carlo Venturi, 2023. "Assessing the liquidity premium in the Italian bond market," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 795, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    7. Graddy, Kathryn, 2012. "The Extraordinary Art Critic Roger de Piles (1635-1709): An Empirical Analysis of his Rankings and Sale Prices," CEPR Discussion Papers 9006, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Hinloopen, Jeroen & Onderstal, Sander, 2014. "Going once, going twice, reported! Cartel activity and the effectiveness of antitrust policies in experimental auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 317-336.
    9. L. A. Bordag & I. P. Yamshchikov & D. Zhelezov, 2015. "Portfolio optimization in the case of an asset with a given liquidation time distribution," Post-Print hal-01186961, HAL.
    10. Ali Al-Aradi & Sebastian Jaimungal, 2018. "Outperformance and Tracking: Dynamic Asset Allocation for Active and Passive Portfolio Management," Papers 1803.05819, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2018.
    11. Gomes, Francisco & Fugazza, Carolina & Campanale, Claudio, 2015. "Life-Cycle Portfolio choice with Liquid and Illiquid Assets," CEPR Discussion Papers 10369, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Piermassimo Pavese, 2007. "Hedonic Housing Price Indices: The Turinese Experience," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 97(6), pages 113-148, November-.
    13. Aye, Goodness C. & Gil-Alana, Luis A. & Gupta, Rangan & Wohar, Mark E., 2017. "The efficiency of the art market: Evidence from variance ratio tests, linear and nonlinear fractional integration approaches," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 283-294.
    14. Jannett Highfill & Kevin O’Brien, 2007. "Bidding and prices for online art auctions: sofa art or investment," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 31(4), pages 279-292, December.
    15. Garay, Urbi & Pérez, Eduardo & Pulga, Fredy, 2022. "Color intensity variations and art prices: An examination of Latin American art," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 158-176.
    16. Brunella Bruno & Emilia Garcia‐Appendini & Giacomo Nocera, 2018. "Experience and Brokerage in Asset Markets: Evidence from Art Auctions," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(4), pages 833-864, December.
    17. Susan K Christoffersen & Donald B Keim & David K Musto & Aleksandra Rzeźnik, 2022. "Passive-Aggressive Trading: The Supply and Demand of Liquidity by Mutual Funds [Does motivation matter when assessing trade performance? An analysis of mutual funds]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(5), pages 1145-1177.
    18. De Silva, Dakshina G. & Gertsberg, Marina & Kosmopoulou, Georgia & Pownall, Rachel A.J., 2022. "Evolution of a dealer trading network and its effects on art auction prices," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    19. Li, Yuexin & Ma, X. & Renneboog, Luc, 2021. "Pricing Art and the Art of Pricing : On Returns and Risk in Art Auction Markets," Other publications TiSEM 8d25ec25-78dc-4cdc-b054-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Richard Agnello & Xiaowen Xu, 2006. "Art Prices and Race: Paintings by African American Artists and Their White Contemporaries," Working Papers 06-06, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Art investing; Selection bias; Asset allocation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • 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:luc:wpaper:13-7. 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: Martine Zenner (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsculu.html .

    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.