Two games in town: a comparison of dealer and auction prices in contemporary visual arts markets

Abstract

Markets for visual art, Dealer and auction market price indices, Valuation, Pricing process, D44, Z11,

Random walk theory and the weak-form efficiency of the US art auction prices

“…If we analyze the prices of both markets sequentially, there is a casual link from the auction market to the dealers' market as auction prices represent a benchmark for galleries (see Candela and Scorcu, 2001). As another point of view, Hutter et al (2007) find that the aggregate price level of the dealers' market is higher than that of the auction market in contemporary arts. The yearly price developments show similar upward patterns for both dealer and auction markets, but dealer prices are stickier in their downward movements.…”

To sell or not to sell? Pricing strategies of newly-graduated artists

“…A few studies have compared the primary and secondary markets looking at both auction price and gallery/dealer datasets (Hutter et al, 2007;Beckert & Rössel, 2013). Qualitative studies such as Velthuis (2003) andO'Neil (2008) have used interviews with established artists and dealers to explore their pricing norms and perspectives while a few recent studies have explored the implications of discounts (Komarova, 2015) and digitalization (Hegner, 2020) qualitatively.…”

Sustainable development of art industry and a statistical analysis of the factors that influence the gallery prices of contemporary artworks

“…Further, compared to other sectors, the level of institutionalization in art industry is relatively low, giving rise to many problems and obstacles. Some examples include the societal beliefs and prejudices such as “art is not a basic need” or “money ruins art” (Bridgstock, 2013), underestimation of the time and effort put into artworks (Lucas & Nordgren, 2015), racial, ethnic and gender‐based inequalities (Topaz et al, 2022), inadequacy of intellectual property rights (van den Bosch, 2009), speculative price movements (Hutter et al, 2007) and money laundering risk at auctions (Hufnagel & King, 2020), and uneven distribution of power or benefits in art supply chain (Prinz, 2022). In most cases, these issues result in a fall in the quality of artworks, loss of the freedom of artistic expression, and even compel artists to work in other industries, disrupting artistic production (Fanthome, 2013).…”