To fake or not to fake: An empirical investigation on the fine art market

Although carefully debated in the legal, aesthetic, and philosophical perspectives, the impact of fakes on the art market has been often overlooked by the economic literature. This paper offers a novel perspective on this issue by investigating the effects of the detection of several Alberto Giacometti’s forged sculptures. Using this exceptional quasi-experiment, the aim of the paper is to analyze whether a specific fake detection persistently influences the prices of a market segment or only exerts a short run effect. The Interrupted Time Series Analysis is adopted to evaluate the impact of fakes across percentiles of the return distribution, accounting for the overall trend in sculpture sales over the period 2000–2015. The empirical evidence shows that in the short run different dynamics emerge across percentiles, but in the medium run fake effects on returns are neutralized.