Gender diversity: a biased auction market?

Previous research has addressed the issue of gender inequality in the art market (i.a. Bocart et al., 2018; Cameron, Goetzmann & Nozari, 2019). Two theoretical streams try to explain the existing gender effects: the demand theory and the supply theory. While the demand theory argues that art by women is simply of lesser quality, the supply theory states that institutional barriers prevent women from participating in the professional art market (Cameron et al., 2019, p. 280). Our study contributes to the ongoing debate. It examines the influence of auction houses on gender effects in the secondary art market. Based on a data set of over 6,000 auction transactions at Christie’s in 2019, five statistical tests are conducted. The multi-factorial analysis of variance is used to analyze the data.