It is with great sadness that TIAMSA announces the passing of Professor Emeritus Victor Ginsburgh, economist at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université libre de Bruxelles.Widely recognized in the field of cultural economics, Victor Ginsburgh made pioneering contributions to the study of the economy of fine arts, classical music, languages, and wine. His trailblazing role in developing empirical art market research and quantitative art history cannot be overstated. At a time when economics and art history were seen as opposing disciplines, he successfully demonstrated how their methods, tools, and concepts could be combined to yield new insights—a contribution that continues to shape art market studies today.
Art market research is by nature interdisciplinary, often grappling with the complex and multifaceted nature of its object of study. Despite approaching the field as an economist, Victor Ginsburgh’s deep and genuine passion for the arts—he was himself a collector—gave his work exceptional depth. His research addressed key issues such as authenticity, expertise, quality, talent, market performance, and price formation. More importantly, he recognized the fundamental role of culture in society, and, through his mastery of economics and econometrics, he helped convince mainstream economics of the value and legitimacy of studying art markets. His work continues to inspire generations of scholars across economics, finance, art history, and cultural management.
Although not trained as an art historian, Ginsburgh remained remarkably modest about his contribution to the field. While the quantitative approaches typical of economics may sometimes appear reductive from an art-historical perspective, his work challenged the art community to think differently and to explore new ways of addressing what is often deemed uncontrollable. His introduction of quantitative analysis into art history holds a still underestimated potential for deepening our understanding of the art ecosystem, both past and present, as a complement to traditional methods.
Most of his publications appeared in disciplinary and interdisciplinary economics journals, which may explain why parts of his work may still be unfamiliar to some members of the art market community. TIAMSA wishes to take this opportunity to honor his legacy and to encourage readers to (re)discover his innovative and enduring contributions to the study of art and culture.
Selected bibliography
Ginsburgh, V., & Schwed, N. (1992). Price Trends for Old Masters’ Drawings. The Art Newspaper, September.
Buelens, N., & Ginsburgh, V. (1993). Revisiting Baumol’s ‘art as floating crap game’. European Economic Review, 37(7), 1351-1371.
De la Barre, M., Docclo, S., & Ginsburgh, V. (1994). Returns of impressionist, modern and contemporary European paintings 1962-1991. Annales d’Economie et de Statistique, 143-181.
Ginsburgh, V., & Jeanfils, P. (1995). Long-term comovements in international markets for
paintings. European Economic Review, 39(3-4), 538-548.
Chanel, O., Gérard-Varet, L. A., & Ginsburgh, V. (1996). The relevance of hedonic price indices: The case of paintings. Journal of Cultural Economics, 20(1), 1-24.
Ginsburgh, V., & Penders, A. F. (1997). Land artists and art markets. Journal of Cultural Economics, 21(3), 219-228.
Ginsburgh, V. (1998). Absentee bidders and the declining price anomaly in wine auctions. Journal of political Economy, 106(6), 1302-1319.
Benhamou, F., & Ginsburgh, V. (2002). Is there a market for copies?. The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, 32(1), 37-56.
Ginsburgh, V. (2003). Awards, success and aesthetic quality in the arts. Journal of Economic perspectives, 17(2), 99-111.
Ginsburgh, V., & Zang, I. (2003). The museum pass game and its value. Games and economic behavior, 43(2), 322-325.
Ginsburgh, V. A., & Van Ours, J. C. (2003). Expert opinion and compensation: Evidence from a musical competition. American Economic Review, 93(1), 289-296.
Ginsburgh, V. (2005). Droit de suite. An economic viewpoint. The modern and contemporary art market, 45-53.
Ginsburgh, V., Mei, J., & Moses, M. (2006). The computation of prices indices. Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, 1, 947-979.
Ginsburgh, V. A., & Throsby, D. (Eds.). (2006). Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture (Vol. 1). Elsevier.
Ginsburgh, V., & Weyers, S. (2006). Creativity and life cycles of artists. Journal of Cultural Economics, 30(2), 91-107.
Ginsburgh, V., & Weyers, S. (2006). Persistence and fashion in art Italian Renaissance from Vasari to Berenson and beyond. Poetics, 34(1), 24-44.
Ginsburgh, V., & Van Ours, J. C. (2007). On organizing a sequential auction: results from a natural experiment by Christie’s. Oxford Economic Papers, 59(1), 1-15.
Ginsburgh, V., & Weyers, S. (2010). On the formation of canons: The dynamics of narratives in art history. Empirical studies of the arts, 28(1), 37-72.
Ginsburgh, V., Legros, P., & Sahuguet, N. (2010). On the incidence of commissions in auction markets.International Journal of Industrial Organization, 28(6), 639-644.
Ginsburgh, V., & Weyers, S. (2014). Evaluating excellence in the arts. The Wiley handbook of genius, 509-532.
Cleeremans, A., Ginsburgh, V., Klein, O., & Noury, A. (2016). What’s in a name? The effect of an artist’s name on aesthetic judgments. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 34(1), 126-139.
Ginsburgh, V., Radermecker, A. S., & Tommasi, D. (2019). The effect of experts’ opinion on prices of art works: The case of Peter Brueghel the Younger. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 159, 36-50.
Radermecker, A. S. V., & Ginsburgh, V. (2023, January). Questioning the NFT “revolution” within the art ecosystem. In Arts (Vol. 12, No. 1, p. 25). MDPI.
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