The Latin American art market: literature and perspectives

Abstract

Objective The purpose of this paper is to present the progress and trends of the literature on art as an investment and to outline potential research lines to be developed. Design/methodology/approach This work gathers, analyses and critically discusses the attributes of investments in art in general, and in Latin American art in particular. Findings Most studies report that art (art in general, and Latin American in particular) has offered relatively low but positive real returns, which have tended to be below those offered by stocks and similar to those realized by bonds. Art has a low correlation with other investments. Research limitations and implications The literature on the attributes of Latin American art as an investment is limited and new research would help to close the knowledge gap with respect to this segment of the art market as it continues to grow. Practical implications Similarly to the research carried out into other segments of the art market, studies on Latin American art suggest that the works of art are worth more, ceteris paribus: the more renowned the artist, the larger the work, whether they were executed in oil, and if they were auctioned at Sotheby’s or Christie’s. The paper also details a series of practical implications for those who participate in the art market. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first exhaustive review of the literature on the attributes of Latin American art as an investment. The findings of this study are useful for academics, art collectors, auction houses, gallerists and others who take part in the arts market.

Color intensity, luminosity, contrast and art prices: the case of Jean-Michel Basquiat

“…Following the literature (e.g. Worthington and Higgs, 2005; Campbell, 2008; Campos and Barbosa, 2009; Kraeussl and Logher, 2010; Taylor and Coleman, 2011; Renneboog and Spaenjers, 2013; Stepanova, 2019; Vosilov, 2015; Pownall and Graddy, 2016; Garay, 2018; Garay, 2021), the hedonic model will be estimated by running an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The OLS is fixed effects concerning both time and cross-sections.…”

The determinants of art prices: an analysis of Joan Miró

“…Investors have shown increasing interest in art investments (see e.g. Goetzmann, 1993; Campbell, 2008; Mei and Moses, 2002; Renneboog and Spaenjers, 2013; Garay, 2018). The study of art as an investment alternative has also benefited from the growing availability of data and prices of artworks auctioned around the world.…”

“…The following studies have also applied the hedonic pricing method to measure art investment returns: Buelens and Ginsburgh (1993), Agnello and Pierce (1996), Taylor and Coleman (2011), Garay et al (2017) and Garay (2017). Tables I (repeat sales) and II (hedonic pricing), which have been adapted from Garay (2018), show the results reported in the literature regarding the risk and return of investment in artworks. The following general conclusions can be drawn: Most of the studies carried out analyse the artworks’ performance by studying price indices for countries or artistic movements.…”

“…Table III, also adapted from Garay (2018), shows the risk and return of art investments by styles/movements that have been reported in the literature. All the studies of art styles/movements that were found are based on the hedonic pricing model because the repeat sales method only allows for the consideration of a small sample of the universe of works traded at auction.…”

International trade and innovation: delving in Latin American commerce

“…This unity concept is frequently used, as when analysts refer to the "lost decade of Latin America" for the period of the 1980s; currently very similar opinions can be found according to one conceptone economic behaviour, regardless of the model of development apply by each country (Ocampo, 2008). Experts from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and Oxford Economics, referred to the hard year of 2019 for the region and anticipated that during the year 2020 low economic growth and high political and economic uncertainty would prevail, amongst other conditions (Jasso et al, 2017;Garay, 2018;Author et al, 2020).…”