A arte, ah, a arte…(ou seja: a economia da arte!)

Eis aí um artigo que tem um tema interessante: a economia da arte! Para você ter uma idéia sobre o objetivo específico do estudo, veja o resumo.

An Application of Hedonic Regression to Evaluate Prices
of Polish Paintings
Dorota Witkowska

Abstract

As the global financial crisis hit the world-wide stock markets, investors looked for alternative investments to diversify their portfolios. One of the more attractive alternate investment opportunities has been investment in art. However, in order to consider artworks as investment assets, the performance of the artworks must be evaluated in order to compare it to other financial instruments. Therefore, hedonic art price indexes are constructed for different art markets. The art market in Poland is characterized by a limited scale since it has only been developing since 1989. The aim of our research is evaluation of the hedonic art price indexes for Polish paintings. Hedonic regression models are estimated using data from auctions of paintings that took place in Poland in the years 2007–2010

É ou não é um tema interessante? Afinal, como diz a autora na conclusão, o mercado de arte é uma fonte de segurança para os investidores. Eis aí a função (social?) da arte: servir como opção para que uma pessoa se proteja contra crises e momentos de recessão ou depressão. Para o caso da amostra da autora, que diz respeito à economia polonesa:

Considering the situation of the art market, one may notice that decline of art prices became visible in 2009, while the main index of the Warsaw Stock Exchange—WIG decreased by 51 % (in 2008 in comparison to the previous year). As a result of the financial crisis in 2010, the decline of WIG was by 15 % in comparison to the year 2007. In that period the decrease of art prices was only 12.8 % for the naive index, and 7.2 % for the average hedonic index. This observation justifies the opinion that art can be treated as a safe asset class.

É uma função importante, não?