Going Global: Markups and Product Quality in the Chinese Art Market

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractWe analyze two reasons for export prices to be different across markets-namely, quality differentiation and variable markups-and attempt to parse their relative importance and some of their underlying drivers. To overcome the substantial measurement issues in this task, we consider a particular industry as a special case: Chinese fine art. The simplicity of the supply side of art vis-á-vis marginal cost and the wealth of data on its quality characteristics make it possible to separately identify the markup and quality components of international relative prices for Chinese artworks. Through this lens, we trace the process of growth and internationalization of Chinese art since the year 2000. We find strong support for quality sorting into international markets at both the level of artist and artwork, as well as substantial markup differences across destinations. Using a structural model of endogenous quality choice by Feenstra and Romalis (2012), we argue that much of the international quality premium is driven by per unit distribution costs (whether physical or informational) rather than destination-specific preferences for quality.

Bubbles and Trading Frenzies: Evidence from the Art Market

“…Ashenfelter and Graddy (2011) study sales rates at art auctions, but not volume per se. Bai et al (2013) examine volume through the lens of international trade. Our set-up is complementary to that of Korteweg et al (2013) and Lovo and Spaenjers (2014), who examine how changes in market values correlate with the likelihood of trading for individual artworks.…”