Art experts and auctions Are pre-sale estimates unbiased and fully informative?

Luc Bauwens and Victor Ginsburgh

No 2000022, Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: Public sales art catalogues include low and high pre-sale price estimates by experts. This makes it possible to analyze whether pre-sale estimates are unbiased predictors of realized prices. Unbiasedness is tested using a sample of some 1,600 lots of English silver auctioned by Christie's and Sotheby's. Results show that estimates are slightly (but significantly) baised and that experts do not use ail the information that is available to them when they make their estimates.

Keywords: Biasedness of pre-sale estimates; not fully informative pre-sale estimates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-06-01
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Art experts and auctions are pre-sale estimates unbiased and fully informative? (2000)
Working Paper: Art experts and auctions:are pre-sale estimates unbiased and fully informative (2000)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvre:2000022

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