Famous Views of Economics: An AI-Based Analysis of Japanese Woodblock Print Subject Matter and Economic Circumstances

Abstract

How do socioeconomic conditions influence what artists depict in their artworks? More concretely, how do artists react to trade shocks and technological innovation? To answer these questions, I leverage novel artificial intelligence (AI) methods to construct and study a bespoke dataset of Japanese woodblock prints, artist biographies, and international trade records from 1830-1939. I first detail how this novel AI methodology can unlock previously unavailable insights into contemporary culture and economy. Then, through regression discontinuity analysis, I show that artworks reflect "hype cycles" in specific object depictions around technological innovations and Japan's opening of trade in 1854 which precede the widespread proliferation of these novel objects. I then point to a potential mechanism of the artist's decision process as artists' depictions of foreign objects are correlated with their educational background and their geographic locale. Then, I connect artistic subject matter with economic variables to show that lagged artistic depiction of objects can be predictive of future imports, evidence that may suggest artworks could be proxies for consumer interest and eventual demand. Finally, I conclude by noting potential extensions of my AI-based approach.