Machines & Masterpieces

In Episode 8, I talk to Pavel Kireyev about price formation in the CryptoKitties market and about the importance of bidding costs in explaining observed prices and transactions in NFT markets.

In Episode 7, I talk to Sam Rosen (Temple University) and Anthony Zhang (University of Chicago) about their new paper, in which they document how experienced investors outperform inexperienced ones in the NFT market.

In Episode 6, I talk to Stoyan Sgourev (ESSEC) about his recent research. Stoyan argues that musicians, just like many other individuals and organizations, use color as a "positioning device"—to build an identity. He tests his hypothesis by measuring time trends in the colorfulness and contrast of the images on Norwegian black metal bands' album covers.

In Episode 5, I talk to Jozefien Vanherpe (KU Leuven), who just finished writing her PhD on the (un)fairness of contracts in the music streaming industry. We discuss how streaming revenues are split between different parties, the importance of the "30-second rule" and playlists, the low bargaining power of musicians relative to major record labels, and whether the blockchain will transform royalty payments.

In this episode, I talk to Mitali Banerjee, who is an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Business Policy at HEC Paris, about her research on the relation between artistic differentiation and fame. She uses machine learning to measure how different artists are from their peers, and proxies fame through Google Ngram counts. Her findings suggest that the most transformative ideas may not always get the attention they deserve.

In Episode 3, I talk to Joshua Fairfield, Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University, about digital property and NFTs. We discuss the problems with (the lack of) property rights in the context of virtual worlds, e-books and digital music; how the blockchain can support people's urge to collect; and what are some of the issues with NFTs.

In this episode, I talk to Noah Askin, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD, about creativity in pop music. We discuss how to construct machine-based measures of sonic novelty, whether (teams with) female artists are more creative, and what is the optimal level of novelty for a pop song.

In this episode, I talk to Amy Whitaker, Assistant Professor in Visual Arts Administration at New York University (NYU), about applications of blockchain in the art market. We discuss blockchain-based systems of artwork ownership registration, the idea of artists retaining equity in their own work, and whether the blockchain can itself be considered a work of art.