📢 iCEBDA Econometric seminar

Join us on July 6, 2026 at 12:00 noon (Moscow time, online via Zoom) for a research seminar by

🎓 I. Nelidova & A. Nikolchenko — HSE University
Talk: "How an Artwork Looks Has Little to Do with Pricing at Auction — Context Is the Most Important: Geopolitics & Art"

Using data on ~500,000 Christie's transactions (2010–2026) with hedonic pricing, XGBoost, the Geopolitical Risk Index, and text embeddings, this study shows that art prices react to shocks in complex ways. COVID-19 and the Ukraine war generated the highest premiums (safe-haven effect), but local crises diverge: BLM protests (+12.7%) and Brexit (+9.9%) raised prices, while the 2022 UK political crisis lowered them (–2.6%). Russian shocks in 2022 had asymmetric effects — London dropped 8.4%, Paris rose 10.3% — signalling capital reallocation. Auction estimates explain 94–96% of price variance; text embeddings add ~1% more. The response is not uniform but depends on shock type, geography, and market segment.

🔗 Register here: https://economics.hse.ru/bigdata/seminars