Graduation Year
2019
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Economics
Reader 1
Patrick Van Horn
Reader 2
Roberto Pedace
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2015 Madeleine Peterson
Abstract
There is evidence there is a global gender price gap in traditional global art auctions. Taking into account recent technological advances in the secondary art market, this study examines if there is a gender gap for the sale prices of female artists’ work in the contemporary, online art auction market. The analysis uses a unique data set of art works sold in Christie’s Online-Only Auctions for the year of 2018. We regress measures of price on gender and controls for various characteristics of the art work and artist. We find that while there is discount in prices of 17% for artwork created by female artists, further analysis indicates the difference is not necessarily the result of bidder’s biased prices, but rather rooted in the pre-sale estimates given by the auction houses.
Recommended Citation
Peterson, Madeleine, "New Technology, Old Ways? The Gender Price Discount in Online Contemporary Art Auctions" (2019). Scripps Senior Theses. 1265.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1265
