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海外之声 | 史蒂夫·汉克：研究显示艺术市场财务回报不尽人意（中英双语）

Original 2017-11-19 国际货币研究所 IMI财经观察

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本文作者是史蒂夫·汉克，IMI国际顾问委员、约翰霍普金斯大学应用经济学教授。原文在2017年6月30日发表于Forbes.com。《福布斯杂志》是一个可靠的商业新闻和金融信息的主要来源。

作者从财务角度剖析了艺术收藏品的财务回报。研究表示，画作的市场风险很高，并且不能通过多样化的投资组合来规避部分风险。另外，作者认为还有画作评级变动、赝品、物理损害的风险没有被上述研究考虑在内。同时，收藏艺术品的实际收益率低于债券，二战后差距缩小但仍然存在，而债券风险明显低于艺术品。

从纯粹的财务角度来看，长期以来艺术作品并不是一项理想的投资，投资于此的很大一部分原因是人们拥有杰作可以获得审美愉悦或名声。作者认为，金融学家们只应从欣赏的角度出发购买艺术品。

中文译文如下：

不尽人意的艺术市场财务回报

史蒂夫·汉克

翻译：陈佳鑫

审校：陆可凡

除非过去的几个月里你在平壤，不然你一定知道，5月苏富比拍卖出了尚·米榭·巴斯基亚（Jean-Michel Basquiat）在1982年创作的一幅类似骷髅的画。当木槌最后一次落下，日本亿万富翁前沢友作（YusakuMaezawa）挥掷1.105亿美元拍下了这幅作品，显然这位先生怀揣的钱比慎重要多。该交易额在艺术品拍卖史中排名第六。

围绕此次拍卖的炒作再次促使人们相信，收藏品的回报率非常之高。但是如果单纯从财务角度来看，艺术作品——即使是杰作——会是一项好的投资吗？

经济学理论认为，两类资产之间的总收益在经过风险调整后，在长期内应该趋于均衡。持有艺术品的总回报包括货币回报，以及拥有和观赏艺术品所带来的消费（或精神）效益。相比之下，金融资产的总收益只限于货币回报。由于艺术品和金融资产的平均总收益应该相等，艺术品的货币回报应小于金融资产回报，两者之差即是隐性的审美收益。

数据是否支持这一理论呢？瑞士杰出经济学家布鲁诺·弗雷（Bruno Frey）和沃纳·波默林（WernerPommerehne）在其1989年出版的经典著作《缪斯与市场》（Muses and Markets）中给出了答案。为了计算艺术品的实际回报率，他们分析了从1635到1987年共353年间，世界上305位著名画家的杰作的拍卖价格以及净交易成本。为了专注于收藏家青睐的作品，他们只统计了被持有20年及以上的1198幅画作。

他们发现，在这350年期间，绘画作品的平均实际年收益是1.5%。以每幅画的报酬率相对于平均报酬率的波动来衡量，画作的价格风险很高，甚至和最具投机性的股票不相上下。值得注意的是，这种价格风险并不能通过建立多样化的投资组合来实现部分抵消，因为不同作品的价格变动趋于类似。可见，这一市场风险很高。

除了与未来价格不确定性有关的金融风险外，画作还具有其他风险。例如，画作评价下调、赝品和仿造品风险，或者仅仅是物理上损坏的风险。而弗雷和波默林的分析中并没有体现这些实际上将影响画作价值的风险因素。同样未被考虑在内的还有维护、恢复和保险的费用。总之，计算出的低实际回报率已经是被高估的数字，而持有名画的风险也被低估了。

对追求经济利益的投资者而言，画作的资产回报率比金融资产的实际回报率要低。353年期间政府债券的实际年收益为3%，是画作的两倍。而且政府债券的价格风险远远低于画作的价格风险。

因此，正如经济学理论所言，从纯粹的财务角度来看，长期以来艺术作品并不是一项理想的投资，投资于此的很大一部分原因是人们拥有杰作可以获得审美愉悦或名声。

许多艺术品交易商和收藏家认为，自第二次世界大战以来，艺术作品的收益向好。弗雷和波默林认为这一点在一定程度上说得通。1635至1949年期间的画作实际年收益为1.4%；政府债券的实际年收益为3.3%。投资于画作而非债券所损失的年收益为1.9%。

而在1950至1987年期间，画作的实际年收益增加到1.7%，债券的实际年收益下降到2.4%。因此，根据弗雷和波默林的研究，战后时期两种投资收益的差额缩小至每年0.7%。

2013年，斯坦福大学商学院发布了一项最新研究，涵盖了1972至2010年之间的艺术市场。作者亚瑟·科特韦格（Arthur Korteweg）、罗马·克劳斯（Roman Kräussl）和帕特里克·沃维莫伦（Patrick Verwijmeren）得到的最终结论与弗雷和波默林1989年的经典著作中的结论基本相同。

我对投资者和收藏家的建议与巴黎伟大的艺术拍卖商和鉴赏家莫里斯·兰斯的建议不谋而合。在1980年出版的《光荣的痴迷》（The Glorious Obsession）中，兰斯写道，“我们建议金融家们应当在适和他们的领域行事，劝告艺术爱好者除非能从中获得直接的审美满足，否则不要去拥有任何东西。如果没有真正信仰，最好的做法就是放手。"

英文原文如下：

The Art Markets’ Less Than Stellar Financial Returns

By Steve H. Hanke

Unless you’ve been in Pyongyang, North Korea for the past several months, you know that in May Sotheby’s auctioned Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 painting of a skull. When the last gavel fell, YusakuMaezawa, a Japanese billionaire armed with more cash than prudence, had agreed to part with a cool $110.5 million for the sixth most expensive work ever sold at auction.

The hype surrounding the auction has once again promoted the belief that the rate of return on collectibles is very high. But are works of art — even masterpieces — a good investment from a purely financial point of view?

Economic theory suggests that the total returns between two classes of assets, adjusted for risk, should tend to equalize over long periods of time. The total returns from holding art objects consists of a monetary return, plus the consumption (or psychic) benefit that comes from owning and viewing the art objects. By contrast, the total returns on financial assets are limited to monetary returns. Since the total returns on art objects and financial assets should, on average, be equal, it follows that the monetary returns on art should be less than those for financial assets, the difference being the implied esthetic return.

Do the data support the theory? The answer to this question is provided by two distinguished Swiss economists, Bruno Frey and Werner Pommerehne, in their classic 1989 book Muses and Markets. To calculate real rates of return on works of art, they analyzed the auction prices, net of transaction costs, of quality paintings by 305 of the world’s best-known painters over a period of 353 years, from 1635 through 1987. To focus on works sought by collectors, the authors considered only 1,198 paintings held for 20 years or more.

Their findings: The average real rate of return on paintings over the 3.5 centuries was 1.5% per year. The price risk of an individual painting, measured by the fluctuations of the rate of return of individual paintings around the average, was very high, making an individual painting as risky as some of the most speculative stocks. And note that this price risk cannot be reduced by creating a broadly diversified portfolio of paintings, because different paintings tend to show similar price movements. Hence, the market risk is high.

Beyond the financial risks associated with the uncertainty about future prices, paintings are subject to other risks: for example, a downward revision of a painting’s attribution, outright fakes and forgeries, as well as the purely material risk of destruction. The paintings whose values were actually affected by these risks were not included in the transactions analyzed by Frey and Pommerehne. Also excluded were the costs of maintenance, restoration, and insurance. In short, the low real rates of return calculated were overstated and the risks of holding paintings understated.

Compared with the real returns for financial assets, the returns on quality paintings, those relevant for financially-oriented investors, were low. The real return on government bonds over the 353-year period was 3% per year, double the financial return on paintings. And the price risk associated with government bonds was much lower than for paintings.

So, as economic theory suggests, over the very long pull art has been a relatively poor investment from a purely financial point of view. The esthetic pleasure or prestige gained by owning high-quality paintings has played a significant role.

Many art dealers and collectors argue that art has become financially more attractive since World War II. Frey and Pommerehne find that there is some truth to this argument. The real return for paintings during the 1635-1949 period was 1.4% per year; the real return on government bonds was 3.3% per year. The financial opportunity lost by investing in paintings rather than bonds was 1.9% per year.

During the 1950-87 period the real rate of return on paintings increased to 1.7% per year, and the real return on bonds fell to 2.4% per year. Thus, the opportunity lost narrowed to 0.7% per year in the postwar period studied by Frey and Pommerehne.

A more recent study published by Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in 2013 covers the art markets between 1972 and 2010. The authors — Arthur Korteweg, Roman Kräussl, and Patrick Verwijmeren — reach broadly the same conclusions as did Frey and Pommerehne in their 1989 classic.

My advice to investors and collectors is the same as that of Maurice Rheims, the great Parisian art auctioneer and connoisseur. In The Glorious Obsession, which was published in 1980, Rheims wrote, “One would like to tell the financiers to confine themselves to their proper sphere, and advise art lovers not to acquire anything unless they derive a direct esthetic satisfaction from it. Those without the true faith had better give up.”

This article appeared on Forbes.com on June 30, 2017.Steve Hanke is a professor of applied economics at The Johns Hopkins University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

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