HSE Centre for Big Data in Economics and Finance research seminar: "Emotional Safe Havens Through Color: How Palette Characteristics Shape Art Market Prices in Times of Crisis", M. Dorfman
HSE Centre for Big Data in Economics and Finance research seminar: "Emotional Safe Havens Through Color: How Palette Characteristics Shape Art Market Prices in Times of Crisis", M. Dorfman, 13 July 2026 г., 12 noon (Moscow time)
HSE Centre for Big Data in Economics and Finance invites you to the regular research seminar on July 13, 2026, at 12:00 (Moscow time) via Zoom.
Speaker: M. Dorfman
Topic: “Emotional Safe Havens Through Color: How Palette Characteristics Shape Art Market Prices in Times of Crisis”
This paper asks whether the pricing of color attributes in the art market shifts during economic crises and whether any such shift reflects financial or psychological distress. Using lot-level auction data on abstract paintings spanning 2005–2023, the author finds that mean saturation carries an approximately 8.5% price premium during COVID-19 but not during the Global Financial Crisis. The premium co-moves with household confidence but not with financial-market volatility, pointing to an affective rather than a financial mechanism.
A complementary randomized experiment provides causal evidence consistent with the affective channel: induced anxiety raises the willingness-to-pay premium for saturated works by 0.56 standard deviations, with partial mediation through pleasure ratings. These results suggest that, in the context of crises characterized by sustained psychological distress, the affective properties of an artwork's chromatic palette constitute an autonomous source of aesthetic value.
The HSE Centre for Big Data in Economics and Finance, established in 2025 at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, conducts fundamental and applied research in big data analysis, develops modern econometric and machine learning methods, and implements educational programs training next-generation specialists. Learn more about the Centre's activities on its official webpage.
To participate, please register on the Centre's seminar page where the Zoom link will be provided upon confirmation.
