Reported returns on investment for artwork are too high

Art is something one may like to have for the enjoyment of it, but it is also often touted as an investment vehicle. Quite obviously, you would need to diversify heavily. "Experts" claim that art gets a good return on average and that it is viable investment option.

Arthur Korteweg, Roman Kräussl and Patrick Verwijmeren say it is not. The issue is that all the indexes out there are based on transactions, and art items that have higher returns tend to have a higher turnover. The resulting selection bias is not negligible: 7% instead of 11%. Given that high amount of risk, it thus does not look like art is a good investment, unless you enjoy it, of course.