SPAENJERS Christophe

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Real and private-value assets—defined here as the sum of real estate, infrastructure, collectibles, and noncorporate business equity—compose an investment class worth an estimated $84 trillion in the U.S. alone. Furthermore, private values can affect pricing in many other financial markets, such as that for sustainable investments. This paper introduces the research on real assets and private values that can be found in this special issue. It also reviews recent advances and highlights new research directions on a number of topics in the real assets space that we believe to be particularly important and exciting.

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We show that PE sector specialists outperform generalists at every stage of the investment life cycle. Using granular data for thousands of U.S. hotels over the last two decades, we document that specialists exert a greater positive influence on more margins of hotel operations, earn higher net cash flows over the holding period, and achieve larger capital gains upon exit than do their generalist peers and other, non-PE investors backing ex ante equivalent assets. By contrast, PE generalists’ strongest comparative advantage may be better access to attractively priced acquisition financing. Our results provide novel evidence on the heterogeneity of PE investment strategies and associated performance outcomes.

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We assess the accuracy and usefulness of machine-learning valuations in illiquid real asset markets. We apply neural networks to data on one million painting auctions to price artworks using non-visual and visual characteristics. Our out-of-sample automated valuations predict auction prices dramatically better than standard hedonic regressions. The discrepancies with pre-sale estimates provided by auction house experts correlate with sale outcomes: the more aggressive the auctioneer’s pre-sale estimate relative to our valuation, the higher the probability of an unsuccessful auction and the lower the post-acquisition return. Finally, machine learning can detect predictability in auctioneers’ “prediction errors”.

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The first chapter studies how the introduction of a steel futures market affects steel producers and their customers. The second chapter asks how import tariffs in upstream industries affect the investment incentives of downstream firms. The third chapter studies how managerial ownership affects performance in the mutual fund industry.

Previous research has shown that non-local household investors make sub-optimal asset selection and market timing decisions. However, in real estate markets, heterogeneity in returns can exist even with identical ex ante investment (timing) choices, given that transaction prices are the outcome of a complex search-and-bargaining process. Analyzing notarial data for the Paris housing market, we find that “out-of-country” buyers indeed buy at higher prices and resell at substantially lower prices than local investors, ceteris paribus. Furthermore, our evidence suggests that this pattern is not due to higher search costs and information asymmetries, but instead stems from wealth-related differences in bargaining intensity. Finally, we estimate the causal effect of out-of-country demand shocks on property prices in Paris to be positive but small.

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What can studying the creation of knowledge tell us about how new technical fields emerge and develop? This paper shows how a knowledge community may be necessary to support the legitimacy of new products that undergo performance evaluation before purchase. Using historical and ethnographic data covering half a century, we review the growth of the art investment field through an epistemic cultures lens. Technical knowledge about the financial characteristics of art has been developed alongside practical knowledge about how best to structure investment ventures. Investment venture success has been determined by legitimacy as much as by profitability, given durable expectations about the evaluation and monitoring of investments. The growth of knowledge, practices and tools was thus a necessary condition for the recognition of artwork as an asset class. Crucially, the epistemic cultures approach highlights deepening knowledge, resources and professional expertise, and their development through experimentation, failures and negative knowledge. This shows accounting issues contributing to technical field legitimacy and emergence, such as the role of knowledge production, valuation practices and receptive environments, and the distinction between legitimate investments that can be valued and investment venture profitability.Restricted Access: Metadata Onl.

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I study the returns to investments in durable assets since the start of the twentieth century. These assets are generally characterized by relatively low capital gains and substantial price fluctuations. The rate of value appreciation has been more pronounced for collectibles, but transaction costs are very high in such markets as well. However, a rental income yield can add substantially to the returns on housing and land, and likewise owners of collectibles may receive a significant emotional dividend. Because of the lack of such an income or utility stream, gold, silver, and diamonds appear to have been particularly bad long-term investments (at least if not held in the form of jewelry). Finally, durable assets are unlikely to be good inflation hedges, but they may still help diversifying a portfolio because of the imperfect correlations with financial assets.

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Using historical price records for Bordeaux Premiers Crus, we examine the impact of aging on wine prices and the long-term investment performance of fine wine. In line with the predictions of an illustrative model, young maturing wines from high-quality vintages provide the highest financial returns. Past maturity, famous châteaus deliver growing non-pecuniary benefits to their owners. Using an arithmetic repeat-sales regression over 1900–2012, we estimate a real financial return to wine investment (net of storage costs) of 4.1%, which exceeds bonds, art, and stamps. Returns to wine and equities are positively correlated. Finally, we find evidence of in-sample return predictability.

Aggregate art price patterns mask a lot of underlying variation—both in the time series and in the cross-section. We argue that, to increase our understanding of the market for aesthetics, it is helpful to take a micro perspective on the formation of art prices, and acknowledge that each artwork gives rise to a market for trading in its private-value benefits. We discuss relevant recent literature, and illustrate the potential of this approach through a historical study of record prices for art at auction since 1701.

We present an infinite-horizon model of endogenous trading in the art auction market. Agents make purchase and sale decisions based on the relative magnitude of their private use value in each period. Our model generates endogenous cross-sectional and time-series patterns in investment outcomes. Average returns and buy-in probabilities are negatively correlated with the time between purchase and resale (attempt). Idiosyncratic risk does not converge to zero as the holding period shrinks. Prices and auction volume increase during expansions. Our model finds empirical support in auction data and has implications for selection biases in observed prices and transaction-based price indexes.

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We review the long-term investment performance of three important categories of emotional assets -- stamps, art, and musical instruments. The long-run returns on these collectibles have been superior to the total return from government bonds and Treasury bills (and gold), at least before taking into account differences in transaction costs and other expenses. However, the price volatility of emotional assets is larger than is suggested by the standard deviations of price indexes. The investment risk is further augmented by collectibles' exposure to fluctuating tastes and fads, and their vulnerability to frauds. Finally, indirect investment in emotional asset markets comes with its own set of problems. The available evidence thus indicates that an investment in collectibles should not be considered lightly. However, even if collectible emotional assets are dominated by financial assets in their risk-return properties, they can still be rational purchases for individuals who derive pleasure from owning them.

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We hypothesize the existence of a slow-moving fad component in art prices. Using unique panel survey data on art market participants' confidence levels in the outlook for a set of artists, we find that sentiment indeed predicts short-term returns.

This thesis consists of four separate chapters. The first chapter presents work written in collaboration with Christophe Spaenjers. We show that individuals with a subjective life expectancy that is longer, have a fraction of conditional actions that is increased.The effect of a decreasing life expectancy is mitigated by legation motives.In the second chapter, I study the importance of birth sequence for financial decisions.I show that elders differ from their siblings in their decisions.The results accentuate the importance of family experiences for agents' choices. In the third chapter, I show that the presence of an entourage decreases the probability of a response, and increases the propensity for exaggerated self-evaluation of ability. This observation implies an underestimation of the importance of aplomb for the behavior of individuals. The fourth chapter is the result of a collaboration with Thomas Bourveau and François Brochet.We identify complaints in which complainants allege that the company hid poor performance related to an acquisition. Using the proclamation of complaints as an industry treatment, we find results consistent with an effect disciplining the investment behavior of other industry executives.

Using data from a U.S. household survey, we examine the empirical relation between subjective life horizon (i.e., the self-reported expectation of remaining life span) and portfolio choice. We find that equity portfolio shares are higher for investors with longer horizons, controlling for gender-specific age effects, socio-economic characteristics, health, and optimism. Our result is robust to accounting for the endogeneity of equity market participation or instrumenting subjective life horizon with parental survival. Finally, we show that the effect of a shortening horizon on portfolio allocation is stronger for households without bequest motives.

Using data from a U.S. household survey, we examine the empirical relation between subjective life horizon (i.e., the self-reported expectation of remaining life span) and portfolio choice. We find that equity portfolio shares are higher for investors with longer horizons, controlling for gender-specific age effects, socio-economic characteristics, health, and optimism. Our result is robust to accounting for the endogeneity of equity market participation or instrumenting subjective life horizon with parental survival. Finally, we show that the effect of a shortening horizon on portfolio allocation is stronger for households without bequest motives.

This case shows how an emergent knowledge community is necessary to support and legitimate the efforts of entrepreneurs in new areas of financial investment, due to strong, institutionalized expectations about the rational evaluation and monitoring of financial assets. Using the concept of epistemic cultures to complement an organizational field narrative, this paper examines the development of artwork as a recognizable financial investment category. Despite a long history of attention to art investment, the legitimacy of art as an asset is still emerging. Legitimacy questions have decreased since the 1960s due to the growth of an epistemic culture around art investing, facilitated by new market actors who met the need of professional investors for transparency and accountability. Technical knowledge about art investments came from economists, art price service providers, art market analysts, and others. We also see the development of a more practical knowledge about how best to structure the investment a.

We assess the long-term financial returns from high-quality collectible real assets, and review the unique risks that are associated with such investments. Over the period 1900-2012, art, stamps, and musical instruments (violins) have appreciated at an average annual rate of 6.4%-6.9% in nominal terms, or 2.4%-2.8% in real terms. Despite the similarity in long-term returns, short-term trends can vary substantially across these different types of emotional assets. Collectibles have enjoyed higher average returns than government bonds, bills, and gold. However, it is important to recognize the quantitative importance of transaction costs in collectibles markets. In addition, price volatility is larger than is suggested by conventional measures of risk, and these assets are also exposed to fluctuating tastes and potential frauds. Yet, despite the large costs and many pitfalls, investment in emotional assets can pay off, because of the non-financial yield they provide.

This paper investigates the price determinants and investment performance of art. We apply a hedonic regression analysis to a new data set of more than one million auction transactions of paintings and works on paper. Based on the resulting price index, we conclude that art has appreciated in value by a moderate 3.97% per year, in real U.S. dollar terms, between 1957 and 2007. This is a performance similar to that of corporate bonds--at much higher risk. A repeat-sales regression on a subset of the data demonstrates the robustness of our index.

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