https://whystudyeconomics.ac.uk/blog/2008/10/the-economics-of-art-the-art-of-economics/ Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:29:57 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 https://whystudyeconomics.ac.uk/blog/2008/10/the-economics-of-art-the-art-of-economics/comment-page-1/#comment-7017 Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:29:57 +0000 http://whystudyeconomics.ac.uk/blog/?p=283#comment-7017 I do wonder if part of the reason for the boom in contemporary art is that with great increases in unequal wealth distribution, there is so much money chasing stores of value. Art provides this by being unique, non-reproducible (easily)and has value by common agreement (as have currency notes). Since the supply of old art is limited, the contemporary art market has stepped in to fulfil that requirement. And as bankers guarantee that your currency notes are not fake, so do galleries guarantee that you are buying something valuable. And as long as all in that wealth holding group agree that it is valuable, the art serves as tokens of wealth that can be exchanged wiithin that group, and can be exchanged for other assets thus maintaining some liquidity.

]]> https://whystudyeconomics.ac.uk/blog/2008/10/the-economics-of-art-the-art-of-economics/comment-page-1/#comment-4488 Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:48:03 +0000 http://whystudyeconomics.ac.uk/blog/?p=283#comment-4488 How can anyone seriously justify spending that kind of money on a piece of art? When there is so much trouble in the world like people starving it just doesn’t make sense…

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