Econometric analysis of volatile art markets

A new heteroskedastic hedonic regression model is suggested. It takes into account time-varying volatility and is applied to a blue chips art market. Furthermore, a nonparametric local likelihood estimator is used. This estimator is more precise than the often used dummy variables method. The empirical analysis reveals that errors are considerably non-Gaussian, and that a student distribution with time-varying scale and degrees of freedom does well in explaining deviations of prices from their expectation. The art price index is a smooth function of time and has a variability that is comparable to the volatility of stock indices.