Collectors and value of art in Italy

For over a decade the market for art and collectibles has beentreated in the literature as an established economic sector, thesubject of growing attention on the part of analysts, researchers,banks and institutional investors. Whereas collectibles werepreviously perceived largely as a “safe haven”, even though fewcollectors acquired them as an investment, they are now regarded asfinancial instruments and investments in their own right, alternative– or rather complementary – to more traditional ones, andrepresenting a specific asset class.