Art in Africa: Hedonic price analysis of the South African fine art auction market, 2009–2014

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22 Scopus citations

Abstract

Real asset markets are characterized by illiquidity and heterogeneous assets, presenting challenges to price estimators. Use of a new dataset of 7,553 auction fine art lots brought to market in South Africa, for 2009–14, allows us to examine the full sales hedonic price estimator over a wide set of characteristics. Results validate full sale hedonic pricing: Identities of artists, medium and genre, dating characteristics, and physical characteristics of artwork are significant. External validity of hedonic pricing is supported by out-of-sample price prediction for 40 individual artists. Auction house catalogue presentation of art work also proves correlated with realized auction prices. Art as an asset finds support: art prices move countercyclically with GDP and domestic equity markets, pro-cyclically with off-shore equity markets, implying a risk diversification role. JEL Codes: D1, L8. Keywords: hedonic price equation, art market, South Africa Word Count: 9467 (including all Tables, Figures, References).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)88-101
Number of pages14
JournalEconomic Modelling
Volume84
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Economics and Econometrics

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