An Exploration of Auction Price Concentration at the Artist Level

Abstract

Auction price studies have typically had an object-based focus, employing models to understand the prices of artworks. In this paper, we take an alternative focus on price heterogeneity, considering the artist, not the artworks, as the level of observation. Understanding how factors relating to the artist, such as gender and region, and their work, such as how diverse their oeuvre is, provides new insights into our overall understanding of price heterogeneity in the art auction market. Using panel data from the Australian Art Sales Digest for auctions containing artworks by Australian Indigenous artists, we investigate artist-level price heterogeneity. We find significant impacts of product and supply diversity, regions, fame and the living status of the artist, particularly a strong death effect. Conversely, there are no significant effects of artist supply factors (number of works offered) or the gender of the artist.