The Economics Of The Art Market: Why This Painting Isn't Worth $450 Million

in 2017 at a Christie's auction house in New York a mysterious art buyer won this painting after bidding a record-breaking 450 million dollars but this wasn't just any piece of art this was the Salvator Mundi a painting by the legendary Leonardo da Vinci news of the staggering purchase price sent shockwaves through the entire art market which interestingly enough has been a reliable indicator of impending market bubbles for decades 450 million dollars is enough money to purchase an array of all kinds of investments from 1% of General Motors a small suburb of investment properties or an archipelago in the South Pacific all while still having about 50 million dollars left over as walking around money even better each of these investments would generate income allowing you to retire quite comfortably from the yield generated from them a painting on the other hand regardless of whatever any art broker tells you is just that a painting and although it may look great over your fireplace it will never bring in cash flow that's because the only way to make money in the art market is if someone is willing to buy your artwork at a higher price than the price you paid perhaps for some emotional reason in essence it's the epitome of the greater fool theory the idea that some fool or buyer will eventually come along and purchase your artwork with the hope to eventually resell it to yet another buyer at even a higher price which is like a game of hot potato for billionaires arguably this isn't investing it's speculating because any appreciation is held entirely within the eyes of the beholder and when it comes to the world's most expensive painting the Salvator Mundi they'd probably only be a few dozen people on the planet with the ability to make such a purchase therefore limiting the market for prospective buyers so how is it that this illiquid asset class reserved for the elite has been able to command such lofty valuations for let's face it strokes of paint on a canvas what drives the high-end art my how can art be used to move money around in creative ways to get around taxes and perhaps above all why would anyone Park so much money in a picture when there are other asset classes that actually generate cash like real estate rentals or dividend paying stocks this video is proudly brought to you by Squarespace start your 14 day free trial to build a beautiful website today while saving 10% on your subscription by using the code economics explained at checkout get started now by going to Squarespace comm slash economics explained so without further ado let's explore the economics of the art market investments are often viewed through a black-and-white lens you are either making money or you're losing money there isn't any room for gray that's as true for corporate earnings as it is for the colorful art market and despite the headlines of the latest jaw-dropping art sales this market isn't exclusively reserved for the super-rich in fact the art market has quite a range from prints that you can buy online created by freelancers and aspiring artists to higher-end pieces that you can find at your local art gallery like everything in the universe the price of a painting is ultimately the function of the same supply and demand forces that all products are subject to on the lower end of the spectrum art provides a nice pop of color to an otherwise dreary studio apartment so people are happy to buy it so long as they are willing to pay enough to cover the cost of materials and construction for the business selling these items with a bit of profit hey presto you got yourself a transaction some might argue that these sorts of decorations are not real art but you know what most of it looks just fine to me we're not art critics here we are economist and for the sake of describing how the art market works these little feature walls will look just fine as things get slightly more rarefied though the supply side of our equation is no longer limited by how much it costs to produce these items but rather how many examples physically exist if we assume that an original Picasso is inherently more pleasing to the eye than a $20 print from Ikea then people are going to want the original Picasso now since there are only a few hundred original Picasso's in existence these pieces are going to be allocated to the people with the means to purchase them and those people will only be able to purchase them from people who already hold on to them which is the foundation of a collector's item collector's items are a really cool economic anomaly when it comes to the normal functions of supply and demand a collector's item is normally defined as any item that can no longer be produced as a relatively limited supply and is somewhat enticing to own because it provides some material benefit rare artwork ticks all of these boxes the ability to produce new items and the current supply is part of the reason why people joke about artists works be more valuable when they're dead you aren't getting any more Velasquez or Goya's or Rembrandt's so if you want one you've got to hunt down what we have left here on earth why these items become such an anomaly though is because of the lesson they show us in opportunity cost if a wealthy family did hold on to an original Picasso and was offered five million dollars to purchase it they may choose not to sell it economic logic would then dictate that this would mean that if there was another similar Picasso for sale for five million dollars the family would choose to buy it in reality that's not actually the case they may not have five million dollars on hand they may not want another Picasso or they just might not be able to justify spending that money on a painting opportunity cost though would dictate that if you were not willing to sell something for five million dollars and that means you are giving up five million dollars to own that item which on the other side of the equation would mean that you would be willing to buy the same item for five million dollars in both examples you would be giving up five million dollars to own that painting sounds logical right and that's why it's one of the foundational rules of economics but of course it's wrong people are dumb and emotions frequently impact these types of decisions and nowhere is that more apparent than in a collectible item that have a perceived value as an investment opportunity cost is a really valuable tool to incorporate into your thinking when making any type of financial decision beard investing in shares buying a house selling a car or whatever it may be if you would be happy to sell and buy an item at the price discussed you are probably paying a fair price now as for our da Vinci here one could feasibly argue that simply because there was only one example of this painting in the world on the supply side and there was someone willing and able to make this purchase on the demand side hey presto you have your sale right here no more questions to ask so instead maybe what we should ask is not why this painting is so expensive but rather what made someone that was rich enough to be able to make this purchase willing to do so as we saw earlier people normally value items that they already own higher than items that they are considering purchasing since all collectors items are already owned any potential buyer is going to have to buy an item from someone who is inherently going to apply this psychological markup so the price in theory should keep on appreciating within reason in turn because people expect the price to keep on appreciating they are more inclined to hold on to things that they now see as an investment with this you very quickly get yourself the makings of a speculative asset bubble an asset by definition is a resource with economic value that an individual corporation or country owns or controls with the expectation it will provide a future benefit like cash flows capital appreciation or productive potential so is art a wise investment well historically yes but potential investors need to be well aware that a lot of its value is derived from what people think it will be worth in the future rather than based on any tangible benefits of holding on to this asset like cash flows or productive potential it must also be recognized that a lot of this kind of speculation goes beyond just art it can be seen in high-end markets around the world things like watches motorcars vehicles and even high-end bottles of whiskey and wine anything that is limited in supply with ahem to prestige is up for this kind of wild speculative ride so with that out of the way let's look at where art can be really handy all righty so now do modern global billionaire you fully understand speculative investments you are welcome fingers crossed you've already understood these but it's all the same now you are fully up to speed so it's time to start getting really creative with your use of art so this is what you do go and find yourself a reputable art dealer with a long history of campaigning new and upcoming contemporary artists or driving up the value of already dead artists whatever it is that you prefer to look up at they're on your wall I guess this art dealer will advise your collection of paintings to purchase and you take his advice to decorate that 100 million dollar London town house you purchased in the last video so let's say you spend a total of 20 million dollars it sounds incredibly expensive for some art but it gives you a collection of let's say 20 paintings for an average value of a million dollars each now you let your art dealer do their thing they write about this exquisite artists in magazines or regale other billionaires with diatribe about how this white canvas is a reflection of a blank society or whatever it is all in an attempt to drum up some attention surrounding this new artist then it's time for Part B of this operation you sell a painting or two through a very public option house like Christie's or Sotheby's and bid on it yourself through an agent or a lawyer or a trusted representative they place a few fake beards and let's say they bid your artwork up to ten million dollars fantastic but don't celebrate too soon because all you've done is actually purchased this artwork off yourself and probably lost a 2% Commission to the auction house in the mean time but here's where it gets good suddenly on paper your artworks are now worth 10 million dollars each based on historical sales figures bringing the net value of your portfolio from 20 million dollars all the way up to 200 million dollars it sounds great right well yeah but in reality you would struggle to actually sell those paintings to a genuine buyer so you aren't actually any richer in practice but what you can do is this say you make a lot of money one year and you would have to pay tax on that sounds terrible right but don't worry what you can do is donate one or two of your paintings to the local museum you can call this a charitable donation of twenty million dollars and the museum will be more than happy to not along with this because at the end of the day they are getting free paintings that your art dealer has drummed up some interest in this means that you will be able to report a twenty million dollar donation to the IRS by just giving away paintings that originally only cost you two million dollars saving yourself about ten million dollars in taxes with any luck the museum might even name a wing after you or invite you to their next Uppercross soiree as a token of their appreciation which is a great boost to the old ego this is kind of a win-win all around it's a win for you because you don't have to pay tax it's a win for the artist because they get to sell their paintings at a markup it's a win for the art dealer who gets to charge you for their services it's a win for the auction houses who get to charge a commission for a sale that went nowhere and of course it's a win for the museum who gets some shiny new paintings in fact all the key actors in this game are incentivized to play along with this little charade a fine art because they are all better off for doing so in a sense this whole great big industry is directly subsidized by you the taxpayer this whole thing gets even better though because when you really think about it artwork is just a rectangle with pretty designs on it and it has a nominal value based on what people agree it's worth just like say a dollar bill works of art are unbelievably useful for moving money around in creative ways because it's easy to transport hard to track why they recognized and very useful for all the reasons we saw above in a sense art is like bitcoins for billionaires but it still plays one last very very important role so art is useful for all manner of financial maneuvering but one of the biggest reasons the wealthy elite of the world love it so much is because it's a very cost dense physical asset if you think about things that you could buy for 100 million dollars you could get a private jet or a yacht maybe some very very high-end real estate or a portfolio of stocks and bonds the first few are great but they are huge if you want to stash your wealth discreetly than a 300-foot mega yacht is not the most loti approach Plus running costs and depreciation make them a pretty terrible investment anyway a share portfolio could be better but most share ownership is electronically certified these days and falls under the jurisdiction of pesky government authorities that may look to seize your assets in the event that you are all I don't know laundering money artwork is small easy to store holds its value and can be worth an insane amount of money which means it's ideal to keep in a bunker somewhere in some tax haven or a free port to ensure it is there and ready to sell if you ever need it one of the most fascinating applications of this type of asset is something the average person would never even think of this is a rashard mill what you're fishing autos are divided on this timepiece but those who like them love them and you could argue that they are basically akin to works of high-end art at least in the way that their market works this watch here is worth 3 million US dollars which is just as insane as some painting that costs 450 million dollars the reason that it can get away with costing so much is the same as with the artwork it's rare people expect it to keep on appreciating in value you can show off to your other rich friends and sometimes you can pull off some financially funny business with it but a key benefit here is that it is strapped to your wrist in the event a billionaire in a less than stable country is forced to leave in a hurry they can literally establish themselves financially in any nation around the world simply by using the watch on their wrist it is unknown if anybody has actually used a watch of this scale for this type of desperate cash flow boost but wristwatches are a well-known way of keeping some functional cash flow on you at all times art is weird it's difficult to understand its hidden meaning and it's more difficult to understand it's hidden markets and outrageous prices the old adage that something is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it may not hold true in this weird and wonderful world of the global elite but for now dear billionaire you have yet another tool in your arsenal to properly move money around in creative ways to ensure that it's working for you and not for some governments somewhere this is not a world filled with passionate aficionados willing to drop tens of millions of dollars in the name of the Arts it's a world filled with savvy investors businesspeople and the moneyed elite high-end art is not some abstract expression of society conveyed onto a canvas through labored brushstrokes it's a financial instrument to move money around the world the high-end art market is not filled with creative artists it's filled with creative accountants if you would like to learn even more about the economics of the art market be sure to check out economics of art which is a website that we have created in partnership with the sponsor of today's video Squarespace on the site you will find interesting articles about the art market including a list of the top twenty most expensive art sales in history as well as other interesting data that we didn't have time to include in this video so be sure to check that out at the economics of art and of course if you want to create your own website with Squarespace you can do so while saving 10% on your subscription by going to Squarespace comm slash economics explained just click the link on the screen now which is also conveniently located in the description below if you did enjoy this video please consider liking and subscribing to a huge thank you to our new patrons over on patreon you guys continue to make these videos possible as well thanks guys bye

Channel: Economics Explained

Views: 486,267

Keywords: the economics of the art market, the most expensive paintings, the most expensive artwork, top 10 most expensive art pieces, top 10 most expensive artworks, the economics of art, the economics of paintings, the art market economy explained, art market economics explained, art market economics, contemporary art, contemporary art explained, the economics of art explained, the economics of the art market explained, economics of art, economics of art explained, economics explained

Id: V5sOuET8UWA

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Sun May 31 2020

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Alternative title: How the Rich Actually Use Art to Avoid Taxes.