演講者簡介 : Dr. Clément Gorin received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Lyon. He is currently an Associate Professor of Economics at the Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University. His research is positioned at the intersection of urban economics, economic history, and deep learning.
演講摘要 : This paper uses 627,369 paintings since 1400 to study how societies experienced major socioeconomic transformations. We develop computer vision algorithms to extract two signals from each artwork—emotional expression and visual indicators of material living standards—and validate them against modern measures of wellbeing and economic output. Our empirical analysis documents how populations experienced socioeconomic changes by exploiting variation in emotional and material signals within artists' oeuvres and conditional on painting sub-genres. While both respond to shocks to living standards, such as climate or trade, emotional expression also varies with broader economic and institutional conditions, often without corresponding changes in material outcomes. These findings suggest that paintings provide a long-run measure of experienced welfare, complementing conventional indicators of economic performance.
