Taste refinement and demand for artistic goods

Purpose: Stable preferences cannot be assumed in the arts since exposure to artistic goods and acquisition of knowledge about such goods influence and change preferences. Whilst not unique to the arts, it is a particularly relevant feature of demand for artistic goods. Economists have observed the strong positive correlation between past and current arts demand and have developed models that aim to account for this endogenous change in consumers’ tastes such as models of habit formation, satiation and learning-by-consuming. However, these models are not drawing on established theories or empirical research on human behaviour and decision-making. Drawing on research in aesthetics, two aspects of taste can be distinguished: perceptual expertise (in terms of being able to perceive finer details in an artwork that remain hidden to the novice) and aesthetic attitude. These two aspects of taste will be assessed separately using established theories in cognitive and social psychology. This allows for integration of taste refinement in a demand model. Originality: The research aims to develop and empirically test a model of endogenous taste change that strongly draws on established theories in psychology and aesthetics and thus provides insights about causality and better explains of arts demand.