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The Labor Market in the Seventeenth-Century Italian Art Sector

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  • Federico Etro
  • Silvia Marchesi
  • Laura Pagani

Abstract

We analyze the labor market for painters in Baroque Rome using unique panel data on primary sales of still lifes, portraits, genre paintings, landscapes and figurative paintings. In line with the traditional artistic hierarchy of genres, average price differentials between them were high. We identify supply and demand factors related to prices of paintings. The panel dimension of the dataset and its matched painter-patron nature allows us to evaluate the extent to which price heterogeneity is related to unobservable characteristics of painters and patrons. We find that most of the inter-genre price differential is explained by the variation in average artist heterogeneity across genres. This suggests that the market allocated artists between artistic genres to the point of equalizing the marginal return of each genre. We also explain residual price differences in terms of efficiency wage, signalling and incentive mechanisms to induce effort in the production of artistic quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Federico Etro & Silvia Marchesi & Laura Pagani, 2011. "The Labor Market in the Seventeenth-Century Italian Art Sector," Working Papers 215, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:mib:wpaper:215
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Federico Etro & Laura Pagani, 2013. "The market for paintings in the Venetian Republic from Renaissance to Rococò," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 37(4), pages 391-415, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Art market; Occupational choice; Wage equalization; Signalling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature

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