This article uses hammer prices from five global auction houses to analyse the price premium Bordeaux fine wine yields at Hong Kong wine auctions. We find that fine wine is on average sold at a 19% premium in Hong Kong. We further observe that the Hong Kong premium is not uniform and most pronounced for wines with perfect Parker scores and the most powerful brands. The premium has declined throughout the sample period from 60% in 2008 to a level of around 15% since 2012. This can be attributed to the increase in knowledge on fine wine by Chinese customers.

This paper examines the strong version of the law of one price (LOOP) on the auction market for fine wine. We draw on worldwide auction prices from eight auction houses,1 covering the time period from 2000 to 2012. Employing a hedonic approach, we find significant price premiums in particular in Hong Kong and between auction companies (independent of their locations). The price premiums by far exceed the expected transaction costs, casting doubt on the existence of the strong version of LOOP in the fine wine market. Our results suggest that heterogeneity in buyer preferences may crucially contribute to the observed price dispersion. In particular, although wines suspected of being counterfeits are sold at discounts in Western markets, they fetch price premiums in Hong Kong. (JEL Classifications: Q14, G11)

This article tests the stability of the main hedonic wine price coefficients over time. We draw on an extensive literature review to identify the most frequently used methodology and define a standard hedonic model. We estimate this model on monthly subsamples of a worldwide auction database of the most commonly exchanged fine wines. This provides, for each attribute, a monthly time series of hedonic coefficients time series data from 2003 to 2014. Using a multivariate autoregressive model, we then study the stability of these coefficients over time and test the existence of structural or cyclical changes related to fluctuations in general price levels. We find that most hedonic coefficients are variable and either exhibit structural or cyclical variations over time. These findings shed doubt on the relevance of both short- and long-run hedonic estimations. (JEL Classifications: C13, C22, D44, G11)

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