About Thomas Mosk

Thomas is curious. In a train to Amsterdam he talks with people or reads. A wrinkled freesheet he just found, the Glamcult Art Magazine or an article in the American Economic Review about the role of cognition in contracts. After 1.5 hour he gets out at Amsterdam South WTC Station and grabs his bike. In Tilburg and Chicago he works on his PhD thesis in financial economics. He loves verbal sparring on new ideas to discover both the potential and limits of an economic standpoint and his own opinion.

Art Prices and Income Inequality

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Thomas Mosk

Why do art prices change over time? The characteristics of an individual art object (the artist, school and topic) do not change over time. If art prices reflect the intrinsic value (beauty) of art, does this imply that the intrinsic value of art changes over time?

Figure 1 shows the development of the art prices over time (green line), based on repeatedly traded art objects at British auction houses. Could we conclude from this figure that art had more intrinsic value in 1990 than in 1970? It turns out that the changes in the instrinsic value of art are not the only story behind the graph. There is evidence that an increase in income inequality may lead to higher prices for art.

Figure 1

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An Important Message about the Arts

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Thomas Mosk

In times of financial crisis the government often seems to take measurements to get rid off the stuff which doesn’t seem to make any financial profit, such as the arts.

But is it true that art doesn’t have any (financial) value for society? Is it purely a luxury that we should have in times of economic wealth and prosperity?

This is David Shrigley‘s view on the subject:

Art or Collateral?

Posted on December 27, 2010 by Thomas Mosk

In 2009 the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam acquired ‘The Bend in the Herengracht’ from the Dutch millionaire Louis Reijtenbagh. The 17th-century painting by Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde is one of the highlights of Dutch cityscapes. It displays the richest part of the Amsterdam canal district which is know as the ‘Golden Bend’. The insured value of the painting is approximately 4 million euro.

To the surprise of the museum in April 2009 the US bank JP Morgan claimed the rights to the painting. The painting had been pledged as collateral of a 50 million loan of the former owner of the painting, together with other paintings of Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, en Van Dongen. Reijtenbagh has since defaulted on his loan. This gave the bank the rights to seize the collateral, just as a bank could foreclose your home if you default on your mortgage. Next to JP Morgan the Dutch bank ABN AMRO, Credit Suisse, and Belgian tax collectors also made claims on the painting.

Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde ‘The Bend in the Herengracht’ 1671-1672

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Can money create creativity?

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Thomas Mosk

Standard economic theory predicts that monetary rewards give people incentives to exert effort. Does this also hold for artists? Are they more creative when they get more money? Money has a monetary value, and thus for instant could buy an artist a nice car or get the artist some nice new acrylic paint, but also gives personal recognition. Artists whose paintings are sold for millions of dollars might feel recognized by a wide audience. At the same time more money could enable them to work on bigger and thus more expensive projects. And bigger projects might get them more exposure and also more recognition, which could again generate more money…….

Money enables artist to purchase raw materials such as canvas and paint. It simply costs more money to produce For the Love of God than an oil painting. The question remains whether artists get more creative by earning more money.

photo via Super Touch Art blog

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