Asset Prices and Priceless Assets.

Summary The doctoral thesis studies several aspects of asset returns dynamics. The first three chapters focus on returns in the fine art market. The first chapter provides evidence for the existence of a slow-moving fad component in art prices that induces short-term return predictability. The article has been published in Economics Letters (Volume 122, Issue 3, pp. 432-434), and was written together with Christophe Spaenjers and Luc Renneboog. Chapter 2 investigates how fast is information incorporated into aggregate art prices. Chapter 3 studies price-volume dynamics in the art market and documents evidence of bubble patterns in prices and is written with Luc Renneboog. Chapter 4 proposes a Bayesian estimation procedure that makes efficient use of cross-sectional information, and revisits the return predictability literature.