IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cfswop/595.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is gender in the eye of the beholder? Identifying cultural attitudes with art auction prices

Author

Listed:
  • Adams, Renée
  • Kräussl, Roman
  • Navone, Marco
  • Verwijmeren, Patrick

Abstract

In the secondary art market, artists play no active role. This allows us to isolate cultural influences on the demand for female artists' work from supply-side factors. Using 1.5 million auction transactions in 45 countries, we document a 47.6% gender discount in auction prices for paintings. The discount is higher in countries with greater gender inequality. In experiments, participants are unable to guess the gender of an artist simply by looking at a painting and they vary in their preferences for paintings associated with female artists. Women's art appears to sell for less because it is made by women.

Suggested Citation

  • Adams, Renée & Kräussl, Roman & Navone, Marco & Verwijmeren, Patrick, 2018. "Is gender in the eye of the beholder? Identifying cultural attitudes with art auction prices," CFS Working Paper Series 595, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cfswop:595
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/182452/1/1031264264.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David W. Galenson, 2009. "Conceptual Revolutions in Twentieth-Century Art," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gale08-1, March.
    2. David W. Galenson & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2000. "Age and the Quality of Work: The Case of Modern American Painters," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 761-777, August.
    3. repec:hrv:faseco:30703974 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. 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.
    5. Luc Renneboog & Christophe Spaenjers, 2013. "Buying Beauty: On Prices and Returns in the Art Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 36-53, February.
    6. Tyler Cowen, 1996. "Why women succeed, and fail, in the arts," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 20(2), pages 93-113, June.
    7. 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.
    8. Cecilia Rouse & Claudia Goldin, 2000. "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 715-741, September.
    9. Martha J. Bailey & Jason M. Lindo, 2017. "Access and Use of Contraception and Its Effects on Women’s Outcomes in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 23465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Merja Heikkinen & Paula Karhunen, 1996. "Does public support make a difference, and for whom?," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 20(4), pages 341-358, December.
    11. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A., 2016. "Biology and Gender in the Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 10386, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    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. Amy Whitaker & Roman Kräussl, 2020. "Fractional Equity, Blockchain, and the Future of Creative Work," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4594-4611, October.
    2. Laurie Cameron & William N. Goetzmann & Milad Nozari, 2019. "Art and gender: market bias or selection bias?," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 43(2), pages 279-307, June.

    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. Julien Pénasse & Luc Renneboog & José A. Scheinkman, 2020. "When a Master Dies: Speculation and Asset Float," NBER Working Papers 26831, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Spaenjers , Christophe & Goetzmann , William, 2014. "The Economics of Aesthetics and Three Centuries of Art Price Records," HEC Research Papers Series 1055, HEC Paris.
    3. Ma, X., 2019. "Essays on alternative investments," Other publications TiSEM 7f4d5b36-96cb-4eac-ae91-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. Douglas Hodgson, 2011. "Age–price profiles for Canadian painters at auction," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 35(4), pages 287-308, November.
    5. Christiane Hellmanzik, 2013. "Does travel inspire? Evidence from the superstars of modern art," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 281-303, August.
    6. 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.
    7. David Chambers & Elroy Dimson & Christophe Spaenjers, 0. "Art as an Asset: Evidence from Keynes the Collector," Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 490-520.
    8. Seth C. Anderson & Robert B. Ekelund & John D. Jackson & Robert D. Tollison, 2016. "Investment in early American art: the impact of transaction costs and no-sales on returns," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 40(3), pages 335-357, August.
    9. Whitaker, Amy & Kräussl, Roman, 2018. "Blockchain, fractional ownership, and the future of creative work," CFS Working Paper Series 594, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    10. Ventura Charlin & Arturo Cifuentes, 2013. "A new financial metric for the art market," Papers 1309.6929, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2015.
    11. John Galbraith & Douglas Hodgson, 2015. "Innovation, experience and artists’ age-valuation profiles: evidence from eighteenth-century rococo and neoclassical painters," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 39(3), pages 259-275, August.
    12. Laurie Cameron & William N. Goetzmann & Milad Nozari, 2019. "Art and gender: market bias or selection bias?," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 43(2), pages 279-307, June.
    13. Fabian Y.R.P. Bocart & Eric Ghysels & Christian M. Hafner, 2020. "Monthly Art Market Returns," Journal of Risk and Financial Management, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 13(5), pages 1-22, May.
    14. Galbraith, John W. & Hodgson, Douglas J., 2012. "Dimension reduction and model averaging for estimation of artists' age-valuation profiles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 422-435.
    15. Coslor, Erica & Spaenjers, Christophe, 2016. "Organizational and epistemic change: The growth of the art investment field," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 48-62.
    16. Aubry, Mathieu & Kräussl, Roman & Manso, Gustavo & Spaenjers, Christophe, 2019. "Machine learning, human experts, and the valuation of real assets," CFS Working Paper Series 635, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    17. Laurs, Dries & Renneboog, Luc, 2019. "My kingdom for a horse (or a classic car)," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 184-207.
    18. Ufuk Akcigit & Murat Celik & Daron Acemoglu, 2014. "Young, Restless and Creative: Openness to Disruption and Creative Innovations," 2014 Meeting Papers 377, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Marlene Kim, 2020. "Intersectionality and Gendered Racism in the United States: A New Theoretical Framework," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 616-625, December.
    20. Alison L. Booth, 2006. "The Glass Ceiling in Europe: Why Are Women Doing Badly in the Labour Market?," CEPR Discussion Papers 542, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Art; Auction; Gender; Culture; Bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:cfswop:595. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/ifkcfde.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.