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

Renee Adams, Roman Kräussl, Marco Navone and Patrick Verwijmeren

No 595, CFS Working Paper Series from Center for Financial Studies (CFS)

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.

Keywords: Art; Auction; Gender; Culture; Bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 J16 Z11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul and nep-gen
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cfswop:595

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