My Current Research Projects

What does a value investing strategy look like in the art market? 

Can the National Gallery outperform the art market? 

This is the first study looking at the financial return of a museum. The National Gallery relied on purchases to expand their collection. Budget constraints and scrutiny on spending forced the museum to be a value investor. 

I constructed a new data set on the value of artworks purchased by the museum by hand-collecting insurance valuations. These valuations are superior to the predominantly used auction prices in reflecting the market value of the artwork: They are based on recent transaction prices without the day-specific factors present in auction prices. 

The National Gallery outperforms the British art market on average by 27% annually (risk-adjusted). Contrary to previous literature, outperformance is not confined to a single group of artworks. 

What is the value of information in the art market? 

How does the market react to an exogenous shock to information production?

The effectiveness of markets depends on information, which is often costly to obtain and unevenly accessible. The art market in particular, is famous for being opaque to outsiders. 

In this paper, I explore the effects of a legal shift in 1836 that exogenously incentivized intermediaries to produce information regarding attributions. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, the findings reveal that intermediaries became more cautious in their attributions. 

While the probability of certain attributions decreased, buyers placed a premium on these certainties immediately following the ruling. Improved information production raised overall market prices and reduced anonymous attributions, suggesting that total information increased.