Art Market as a financial asset in times of distress (London, late 19th century and early 20th Century)

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The thesis investigates works of art as financial investments. Many modern newspaper proclaim art as an alternative investment class but despite the interest, little research exists on the financial performance of art. The problem is that the art market is very heterogenous, with each work of art being unique, and private, making it hard to collect data. The thesis circumvents the latter issue by using historical data from the 19th and early 20th Century. The rich amount of information collected is used to build a new art price index, which will be the first hedonic index on art prices for the 2nd half of the 19th century. The resulting index will be analyzed for various episodes of financial and/or economic crisis to identify what role art plays as an investment.