Experience and Brokerage in Asset Markets: Evidence from Art Auctions

Brunella Bruno (), Emilia Garcia-Appendini and Giacomo Nocera ()

No 1605, Working Papers on Finance from University of St. Gallen, School of Finance

Abstract: Focusing on the art market, where auction houses act as brokers between art sellers and buyers, we investigate whether more experienced brokers achieve better performance as information providers. We use a unique data set of auctions of Italian paintings in various houses around the world, and we measure experience as the number of times an auctioneer has auctioned the artworks of a certain artist in a given location. We find that more experienced auction houses (i) are more likely to sell and (ii) provide more precise pre-sale estimates. These findings suggest that experience plays an important role for brokers to reduce illiquidity and opacity in markets with asymmetric information.

Keywords: Brokerage; information; experience; art auctions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 D82 G24 Z11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2016-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://ux-tauri.unisg.ch/RePEc/usg/sfwpfi/WPF-1605.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Experience and Brokerage in Asset Markets: Evidence from Art Auctions (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:usg:sfwpfi:2016:05

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