Can we price beauty? Aesthetics and digital art markets

Sarah Alsultan; Apostolos Kourtis; Raphael N. Markellos

doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111572

Can we price beauty? Aesthetics and digital art markets

Sarah Alsultan, Apostolos Kourtis, Raphael N. Markellos

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Abstract

What is the relation between the aesthetic value of art and its market price? We address this question in the context of digital art markets by employing data from the popular CryptoPunks NFT art collection. We quantify the visual attractiveness of NFTs using four aesthetic measures that are associated with emotional effects in the cultural economics literature. Using a hedonic pricing model, we identify aesthetics as a driver of prices in digital art markets. Our results indicate that investors prefer NFTs with higher levels of colorfulness and texture complexity and lower levels of saturation and brightness.

Original language	English
Article number	111572
Journal	Economics Letters
Volume	235
Early online date	28 Jan 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111572
Publication status	Published - Feb 2024

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10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111572Licence: CC BY

Alsultan_etal_2024_EconomicsLettersFinal published version, 487 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Can we price beauty? Aesthetics and digital art markets",

abstract = "What is the relation between the aesthetic value of art and its market price? We address this question in the context of digital art markets by employing data from the popular CryptoPunks NFT art collection. We quantify the visual attractiveness of NFTs using four aesthetic measures that are associated with emotional effects in the cultural economics literature. Using a hedonic pricing model, we identify aesthetics as a driver of prices in digital art markets. Our results indicate that investors prefer NFTs with higher levels of colorfulness and texture complexity and lower levels of saturation and brightness. ",

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