The new wealth: collectibles and the US Economy

The perception of luxury goods as alternative investment vehicles has allowed people to justify purchases of items for prices that drastically exceed their utility. With new classes of collectibles gaining recognition from investors, it is important to understand their potential sensitivities to key economic factors. While some of them have been explored for collectibles such as stamps or wine, there is a striking lack of understanding of the level of exposure with regard to systematic macroeconomic factors' effect on luxury sneaker prices. There is also an inadequate amount of research that seeks to explore the extent to which the price of this relatively new subgroup of alternative asset class behaves similarly to other collectibles. Using regression analysis, this study will examine the sensitivity of the price performance of indexes representing wine, art, and sneakers markets, to variables representing Inflation Expectations, GDP, and Interest Rate. Furthermore, I will investigate the similarities and/or differences in their relationships to those key economic factors.