Investing with Art: From Paintings to Collectibles and NFTs

This book proposes a transversal approach to art, perceived less as a financial asset class than a source of immediate felicity. It will be of interest to students in art schools addressing the challenges of forgery and authentication in art, at a time in which Artificial Intelligence is becoming a commonly used tool. The book brings forward the 'aesthetic yield' meant to encapsulate the emotional pleasure generated by art and an extension of the 'convenience yield', that represents the benefit of owning a physical commodity - as first suggested by Keynes, an immense economist, and a talented art collector whose portfolio is discussed in the book. Investors will learn of the unique difficulties involved in identifying returns on artworks, illustrated by the famous Salvator Mundi example. Beyond art indexes, the book aims at exploring the financial economics of art, with its scarcity and its incomplete information. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are also simply explained.