Which price, if we all like it? Effects of liking and emotional consensus on art prices in auctions

Marie Blum ()
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Marie Blum: LaRGE Research Center, Université de Strasbourg

Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center from Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg

Abstract: This paper investigates whether consensus on liking and emotion play a role in explaining art auction prices. This study fills a gap in the economics of art literature by considering subjective perceptions of artworks in addition to objective factors in art pricing models. We conduct a survey to measure the degree of consensus on liking and emotion for 124 artworks in two distinct social groups: art collectors (i.e. art market insiders, N=146) and non-collectors (i.e. art market outsiders, N=192). We focus on the comic art market, as it is one of the rare art markets in which it is relatively easy to reach collectors. We find that liking and emotional consensus are reflected in art prices but differently depending on the social group. Specifically, our results show that artworks generally achieve higher prices when they are consensually liked by insiders or eliciting positive emotions to them. However, we find that what is consensually liked by or evokes positive emotions to outsiders generally achieve lower prices at auction. This finding is remarkable as it shows that aesthetic codes and information shared among collectors do not spread to outsiders, but rather go in the opposite direction.

Keywords: art prices; auction; emotion; liking; consensus; art expertise. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 D91 Z11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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