To fake or not to fake: An empirical investigation on the fine art market

Antonello Scorcu, Laura Vici and Roberto Zanola
Additional contact information
Laura Vici: University of Bologna

Journal of Cultural Economics, 2021, vol. 45, issue 1, No 7, 143-152

Abstract: Abstract Although carefully debated in the legal, aesthetic, and philosophical perspectives, the impact of fakes on the art market has been often overlooked by the economic literature. This paper offers a novel perspective on this issue by investigating the effects of the detection of several Alberto Giacometti’s forged sculptures. Using this exceptional quasi-experiment, the aim of the paper is to analyze whether a specific fake detection persistently influences the prices of a market segment or only exerts a short run effect. The Interrupted Time Series Analysis is adopted to evaluate the impact of fakes across percentiles of the return distribution, accounting for the overall trend in sculpture sales over the period 2000–2015. The empirical evidence shows that in the short run different dynamics emerge across percentiles, but in the medium run fake effects on returns are neutralized.

Keywords: Art fakes; Counterfeiting; Giacometti; ITSA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C6 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10824-020-09394-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jculte:v:45:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10824-020-09394-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10824/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10824-020-09394-0

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Cultural Economics is currently edited by Federico Etro and Douglas Noonan

More articles in Journal of Cultural Economics from Springer, The Association for Cultural Economics International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().