Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/235280 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 8910
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Rare books of political economy are eminently collectable. Using historical prices, I employ hedonic regressions to estimate financial returns to collecting the works of ten eminent political economists and develop a price index for this corpus of collectables. For the observation period 1975-2019, I find that in those 45 years investing in rare political economy books yielded an average annual real rate of return of 2.8%, which is well in line with the returns to collecting rare books of classical literature. Compared with other collectibles such as fine art, investing in rare books turns out to be financially more profitable.
Subjects: 
rare books
political economy
price indices
collectibles
cultural economics
history of economic thought
JEL: 
G11
Z11
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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