Can death effects exist without dead artists? Evidence from the second-hand toy market

Bruno Pecchioli (), David Moroz (), Pierre Bentata and Didier Calcei
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Bruno Pecchioli: CEREFIGE - Centre Européen de Recherche en Economie Financière et Gestion des Entreprises - UL - Université de Lorraine, ICN Business School
David Moroz: EM Normandie - École de Management de Normandie = EM Normandie Business School
Pierre Bentata: LID2MS - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Droit des Médias et Mutations Sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université
Didier Calcei: ISG - ISG International Business School [Paris]

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Abstract: With the burgeoning of collaborative platforms, the interplay between valuation channels in primary and secondary markets has emerged as a pivotal concern for a wide range of economic actors. We investigate, in line with the literature on collectables valuation, the effect of size, rarity, and themes on the price of second-hand official LEGO sets. Our data was collected from the BrickLink platform, a prominent online marketplace for second-hand LEGO sets, a few months prior to its acquisition by the LEGO Group. Using an original sample of 7585 different sets, representing 227,920 lots for sale and spanning 107 LEGO themes, we find that sets from discontinued themes experience a death effect, with price increases akin to those observed in the art market after an artist's demise. Additionally, corroborating existing literature, we find evidence of a positive size effect and we confirm that the relative rarity of certain LEGO sets on the market positively affects their price. As for LEGO themes, we document that sets belonging to the most popular and researched themes exhibit higher prices, all other things being equal. Other findings include the positive effect of LEGO elements' diversity, occurrence of minifigures, and sets' age of first release.

Keywords: second-hand markets; collectibles; hedonic prices; LEGO sets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-05-31
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Published in Applied Economics, 2025, pp.1-17. ⟨10.1080/00036846.2025.2510677⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05092284

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2025.2510677

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